
Glass. 
Book_ 



HOUSEHOLD YEESES. 



BERNARD BARTON. 



* True to the kindred points of heaven and home ! " 

Wordsworth. 



F o" 



PHILADELEHlk: 



J. W. MOORE, 138 CHS%rt 



JT STREET. 






Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1845, by 

J. W. MOORE, 

in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the United States 
in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 







PHILADELPHIA: 

PRINTED BY KING & BAIRD, 
No, 9 George street. 



J A^ 'I A ? /"^i? 



TO 



ROBERT MORRIS, ESQ., 

THIS VOLUME OF POEMS 



IS 



GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED BY 



THE PUBLISHER. 




PREFACE. 



I HERE put forth my eighth volume of Verse, after a 
silence of nine years, in trustful reliance on its indulgent 
reception by a Public from whom I have never met 
with aught but courtesy and kindness. / 

The Poems contained in the following pages will be 
found, I believe, very similar, in their tone and tend- 
ency, to those published in the seven volumes which 
have preceded them : and the unpretending title I have 
given them may, I hope, serve to show that I challenge 
for them no higher praise than has been awarded to 
their predecessors. 

B. B. 

WOODBRIDGE, 

7th Month 5th, 1845. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

To tlie Queen . . 1 

Birth-day Verses. For my own, at Fifty-five . . 4 

The Statue of Memnon 7 

Sonnet, to a Friend never yet seen, but corresponded with. 

for ahove Twenty Years 9 

Hymn, for the Opening of a new School .... 10 
Verses, suggested by an Inscription on a Tombstone in 

Melrose Abbey 12 

To a Professional Friend, on his Retirement from Active 

Life 15 

On the Prayer of the poor Publican .... 20 
Sonnet, in Memory of Mary Jesup of Halstead. Written 

in a Volume of Selections from her Letters, &c. . 21 

A Requiem for my young Friend, A. B. F. . . . 22 

New-year Verses, 1841 25 

Sonnet, to the Marquis of Northampton ... 29 

The Yellow-hammer ; a Song, by a Suffolk Villager . 30 



X CONTENTS. 

Page 

To the Memory of Elizabeth Hodgkin .... 33 

A Charade Sonnet. " South- wold " .... 35 
Stanzas, written in the last Illness of my Sister, Maria 

Hack 36 

Farnham Castle. A Sonnet, to John Barton ... 38 

Selborne. A Sonnet, to the same 39 

To E. F., on her Reappearance among her Friends, at the 

Yearly Meeting, 1845 : 40 

" A Christian is the highest style of man '* . . .41 

Sonnet, to a valued Friend and Ex-senator ... 44 

On the going out of the Old Year . . . , . 45 

The Shunammite Woman . . . . , . 49 

Hope for the Mourner 51 

Sonnet, to Jennie Fanny Sumner, of Farnham Castle. 

Suggested by a Portrait of the Bishop of Winchester 53 
The Descent from the Cross. Written to illustrate a Print 

from Rubens's celebrated Picture ... ^ 54 

The Bible 57 

Sonnet, to Job's Three Friends , 58 

A slight Memorial of John Scott, of Amwell ; respectfully 

inscribed to his Daughter, Maria de Home Hooper . 59 

Recollections of a Visit to Amwell, 1844 ... 62 

Stanzas, written for a Young Friend collecting Autographs 67 
To the B.B. Schooner, on seeing her sail down the Deben 

for Liverpool 69 

To Edith Lucy S 71 

Fire-side Verses . . , 72 

The Pool of Bethesda 74 



CONTENTS. XI 

Page 

Sonnet, to the Sister of an old Schoolfellow ... 77 

A word for Peace 78 

To a Friend on her Birth-day 81 

Stanzas, suggested by a beautiful copy of the Madonna and 

Child, presented to me by my friend Mary Frances 

Fitzgerald 83 

To my Daughter on her Birth-day, falling this year on the 

Sabbath 86 

A Lament 88 

Stanzas, to illustrate a Sketch of a Ruined Chapel . . 91 

Sonnet 93 

A Sea-side Sonnet 94 

One more Tribute to my favourite Old Abbey at Leiston, 

Suffolk 95 

A Stranger's Memorial 99 

Stanzas 103 

Sonnet, on the Death of a Friend 104 

To the Dead in Christ 105 

A Postscript 108 

A Poet's Mite to a Bazaar 109 

Sonnet, to the Friends of the Anti-slavery Cause, in America 112 

Sonnet, on the same subject 113 

What is Slavery ? 114 

Egypt and the Nile . , 117 

Stanzas, to a Friend on her Marriage .... 125 

Triplets, for Truth's sake ...... 128 

To the Penates . . . . . . . . 130 

Sunset 132 



Xn CONTENTS. 

Page 

AThouglit 139 

Verses, suggested by a very Curious Old Room at tlie 

Tankard, Ipswich 140 

Scottisli Scenery ; and some of its Associations , • 142 

Emma : Verses suggested by a Portrait . . . 149 

To y on her Grandson's coming of Age . 154 

On a Drawing of the Cottage at Aldborough, where Crabbe 

lived in Boyhood 157 

The Memory of the Dead . . . i . . 162 

On a Portrait of John Bunyan 164 

Spring Flowers • . 168 

A Poet's Memorial of Robinson Crusoe . . . 170 

Faith, Hope, and Charity 183 

Sonnets, written at Burstal. Introductory Verses . 185 

Sonnet I. Berry's Hill 186 

Sonnet II. The Seat at Berry's Hill ... 187 

Sonnet III. The same scene, continued . . .188 

Sonnet IV. In the Shrubbery, near the Cottage . 189 

Sonnet V. The Burstal Lakelet .... 190 

Sonnet VI. The Two Oaks 191 

Sonnet VII. Evening Effect on the Valley . . 192 

Sonnet VIII. Burstal, in the Four Seasons . . . 193 
To I. and G. H. on their leaving Woodbridge, with a Copy 

of Burns's Poems 194 

Framlingham Castle . . . . • • .195 

Helmingham Hall 198 

A Postscript in 1845 200 

Mary's Dirge • 201 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

Page 
A Poet's Memorial of a Departed Friend . . . 205 
" Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever " 207 
To Anna . In the first leaf of a Copy of the Reli- 
quary 208 

A Postscript ; in the last leaf of the same Volume. Added 

some years after 209 

Stanzas 211 

A ChHd's Dream 214 

A Postscript 219 

John Evelyn .220 

A Colloquy with myself 221 

Orford. A Sonnet, inscribed to my friend John Wodderspoon 225 

Orford Castle 226 

The Departed 227 

On a Drawing of Norwich Market-place, by Cotman. 

Taken in 1807 230 

For the Queen's Album. Composed in a dream . . 233 

To the Deben ......... 234 

To a very young House-wife ..... 236 

Sonnet, to the Memory of Gainsborough ; suggested by the 

Frontispiece ••••#... 238 

Silent or Quaker Graces 239 



HOUSEHOLD VERSES. 



TO THE QUEEN. 



Where should the Bard, who builds up household lays, 
Seek for his labours an approving smile ? 

Or whence aspire to win his proudest praise, 
But from the Queen of Albion's sea-girt isle ? 

A QUEEk ! a WIFE \ a mother ! in thai land 

Where home, and home-born ties, by magic thrall, 

Are things all ou^Jit to feel and understand. 
Because by birthright they appeal to all ! 



2 TO THE QUEEN. 

^' An Englishman's fire-side" was wont to be 

His boast and blessing, wakening thoughts of home ! 

Dearer than e'en" the empire of the sea," 
And bright and beauteous as its crested foam. 

And every object with that spot entwined, 

Nay, all beyond it, linked with time and earth, 

Should own the hallowing influence there enshrined, 
Blending with impulses which thence have birth. 

Here " The Penates " have been worshipped long! 

All English hearts confess their gentle sway ; 
And thoughts and feelings which around them throng. 

Gladden domestic dutieSy day hy day ! 

And when our spirits to their claims wax cold, 
When in their light of love no more we live. 

How can we 'mid the nations hope to hold 
Our highest, holiest, best prerogative ? 

Lady ! a great, a glorious power is thine, 
As queen, as wife, as mother ! use it well ! 

So may our country still be kept a shrine. 
Where home is prized! and home-born virtues 

DWELL ! 



TO THE QUEEN. 3 

Nor can a loyal poet crave for thee 
Aught worthier of thy sex — or station's claims, 

Than that thy truth and worth in both should be 
" Familiar in our mouths as household names ! " 

So in our hearts^ not on our lips alone, 

Shall prayers and blessings for thy sake have birth ; 

So for our country's altars, and thy throne, 

Shall such ascend from many a household hearth ! 



B 2 



BIRTH-DAY VERSES. 



FOR MY OWN, AT FIFTY-FIYE. 



Birth -DAY verses ! Never more 

Can that era bring to me, 
As it did in days of yore, 

Visions bright of thoughtless glee. 
When the child would be a boy ; 

When the boy, in heart elate, 
Forward looked with eager joy 

Unto wished-for man's estate : 
Then wns then ! and now is now ! 

Young hopes, then, were all alive 
Such as beam not on the brow 

Of reflecting Fifly-five ! 



BIRTH-DAY VERSES. 

Am I hopeless, then ? Oh no ! 

But for hope the heart were dead : 
Still o'er mine, at times, the glow 

Of a hopeful faith is shed : 
Not in aught which earth can give. 

Or that finds in time its stay ; 
But in things which can outlive 

What these give, and take away. 
Yet, 'gainst hope itself— to hope ; 

MeeTily to endure^ and strive 
With infirmities to cope : — 

These are left to Fifty-five ! 

Still, as health and strength decline, 

It is somewhat to be taught, 
Richer boons may yet be mine. 

With no vain repinings fraught. 
Let the days of boyhood go, 

Manhood's prouder projects cease, 
If my spirit may but know 

More of pure and perfect peace ! 
Where the treasure is — the heart 

There its hoarded hopes will hive : 
Teach me, Lord ! that better part, 

Even late as Fifty-five ! 



BIETH-DAY YERSES. 

Tribulation patience works ; 

Patience doth experience teach ; 
And in such experience lurks 

Hope — that high as heaven may reach ! 
These are jiot like flowers of Spring, 

Which unfolded but to die ; 
Thoughts and feelings to them cling, 

Linked with immortality : — 
Glory ! honour ! thanks ! and praise ! 

Aught of such should still survive : 
Soul ! thine Ebenezer raise, 

Reverently, at Fifty-five I 



THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 



Hast thou heard of a statue, erected of yore, 

Of whose musical murmurs such marvels are told, 

As Philosophy, now, counts but fabulous lore, 
Though trusted as truth by the simple of old. 

For 'twas said, and believed — in the silence of night 
It was mute as the landscape around it that lay ; 

But awoke at the first touch of morning's glad light, 
And with harmony greeted the herald of day. 

Be it fiction alone ! yet a truth it may teach, 

And one which too many have need to be taught. 

Could the emblem's true essence availingly reach 
To the inmost recesses of feeling and thought. 



8 THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 

Thus the dark heart of man, in its fallen estate, 
Bewildered by error, of passion the slave, 

To all that is glorioujs, or god-like, or great, 
Is cold as that statue, and still as the grave. 

But if on it the bright Sun of righteousness shine, 
With light and with life far surpassing the day's. 

Enkindled at once, by that radiance Divine, 
It is vocal with joy, and thanksgiving, and praise. 



SONNET, 



TO A FRIEND NEVER YET SEEN, BUT CORRESPONDED 
WITH FOR ABOVE TWENTY YEARS. 



Unknown to sight ! for more than twenty years 
Have we, by written interchange of thought 
And feeUng — been into communion brought 
Which friend to friend insensibly endears ! 
In various joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, 
BefalUng each ; and serious subjects — fraught 
With wider interest,, we at times have sought 
To gladden this — ^yet look to brighter spheres ! 
We never yet have met ! and never may, 
Perchance, while pilgrims upon earth we fare : 
Yet as we seek each other's load to hear^ 
Or lighten^ and that law of love obey, 
May we not hopein heaven's eternal day 
To meet, and happier intercourse to share ? 



HYMN, 



FOR THE OPENING OF A NEW SCHOOL. 



Unless the house be reared by Thee, 
And Thou the city's keeper be, 

Lord ! in vain we toil : 
The first shall crumble in decay. 
The last shall fall an easy prey, 

And prove the robbers' spoil. 

Thus have they thought and felt, whose care 
Hath sought this fabric to prepare, 

Childhood to lead to Thee ; 
Though rank and wealth, with generous aim, 
Have striven to glorify Thy name. 

The blessing Thine must be ! 



HYMN. 11 

Then hear from heaven, Thy dwelling-place, 
Our grateful song, and give Thy grace 

To crown this work of love ; 
That so the teachers^ and the taught. 
May for the Saviour's sake be brought 

To meet in joy above ! 



VERSES, 



SUGGESTED BY AN INSCRIPTION ON A TOMBSTONE 
IN MELROSE ABBEY. 



" Earth walketh on the earth, 

Glistering like gold ; 
Earth goeth to the earth, 

Sooner than it wold I 
Earth buildeth on the earth 

Palaces and towers ; 
Earth sayeth to the earth, 

All shall be ours I" 



" Most musical ! most melancholy ! " 

To my spirit's ear, 
Chiding earth-born care and folly, 

These quaint lines appear : 
Be their solemn lesson scanned f 
Earth-worm ! hear, and understand. 



VERSES, &c, 13 



Earth on earth still proudly walketh, 

" Glistering like gold!" 
To the silent grave he stalketh, 

" Sooner than he wold ! " 
Man is earth, and therefore must 
Mingle with his parent dust ! 

Man on earth yet proudly reareth 

" Palaces and towers ! '* 
And each edifice appeareth 

Worthy of his powers, 
Were it his ambitious aim 
Thus to leave himself a name ! 

Earth — ^the pile and builder eyeing, 

From her hidden shrine, 
Says, to both alike replying, 

" Ye shall soon be mine ! 
One shall crumble on my breast, 
One beneath my turf shall rest ! " 



U YERSES, &c. 

But is earth, then, thus victorious 

Over what 7nu$i live ? 
No ! a destiny more glorious 

Deathless mind can give ! 
Unto tJiis IT gave not birth ; 
This can ne'er return to earth. 

He whose solemn' thought and feeling 

Left upon this stone 
These few words, to both appealing, 

Has earth's boast o'erthrown : 
" Earth to earth" — with all her powers, 
Cannot say " All shall be ours ! " 

He hath passed death's shadowy portal ; 

In these lines he lives ! 
And, to spirits as immortal, 

Words of warning gives : 
Would 2/e triumph over earth, 
Bear in mind your heavenly birth. 



TO A PROFESSIONAL FRIEND, 



ON HIS KETIREMENT FROM ACTIVE LIFE. 



When from the fields of Palestine 

The chieftain sought his home once more, 
For him the harper of his line 

Poured forth his tributary store ; 
And as, 'mid wine-cups flowing o'er. 

He feasted in his castle-hall, 
Though rude the strain, its simple lore 

Perchance might hold his heart in thrall. 

For, even in that iron age, 

Unless old bards have told us wrong. 
To warrior, knight, or statesman sage. 

Dear was the minstrel's harp and song ; 



16 TO A PROFESSIONAL FRIEND. 

And though unto the martial throng 
Dearest amid the hattle's strife, 

Yet even such, at times, might long 
To hear a strain of calmer life. 

And doubtless many a feudal lord. 

Once proud to stem the battle's tide, 
Returning to his festal board, 

Lance, shield, and helmet laid aside, 
Hath felt the joys by home supphed — 

After long years of service done, 
Sweeter than all the pomp and pride 

Upon the fields of battle won ! 

Then how much more may he — who now 

Retires from life's more active scene, 
Ere time writes wrinkles on his brow, 

Survey that hour with thankful mien : 
And looking round with joy serene 

On blessings won by toilsome years, 
With heart, and hands, and conscience clean, 

Feel how the past his bliss endears. 



TO A PROFESSIONAL FRIEND. 17 

Thine is no blood-stained victor-wreath, 

Won in the fields of martial fame 5 
The trumpet's peal, the bugle's breath. 

May swell not to exalt thy name t 
Gentler and purer is its claim, 

Nor unconfest its calm appeal ; 
And well thy bard might blush for shame, 

If its full force he could not feel. 

If many a year of arduous toil 

Devoted to a noble art, 
Patience — which pain could never foil, 

Honour — that blunted slander's dart, 
Kindness — which soothed the mourner's heart, 

And manners, gentle and benign ; 
May gratulating thoughts impart, — 

Such, honoured friend, are justly thine. 

Where pain and sickness proved their power. 

Numbers have blessed thy timely skill ; 

Where this was bootless, — in the hour 

Of anguish, when the heart grew chill, 
c 



18 TO A PROFESSIONAL FRIEND. 

Thy sympathy, like balm, hath still 
Fallen upon hearts by sorrow riven, 

Wakening on earth a grateful thrill, 

And prayers which soared, foi thee, to heaven. 

Nor less in many a wretched cot. 

Where lonely want laid down to die, 
Mindful of poverty's hard lot. 

Hath thy unpurchased aid been nigh : 
Glad tears have risen to many an eye. 

Called by thy generous kindness forth, 
And the poor sufferer's heart-felt sigh 

Of gratitude — confessed thy worth. 

Such are not profitless, though dumb ; 

For Heaven records each kindly deed. 
And word, and thought ; — a time will come 

When such for thee shall loudly plead ; " 
And acts un-asked for, and un-fee'd. 

Unknown, unthought of, then shall live. 
And for thee win a richer meed 

Than aught this world could ever give. 



TO A PROFESSIONAL FRIEND. 19 

Then welcome to life's calm retreat, 

From its most toilsome, hom-ly care ; 
May every boon that makes it sweet, 

Around thy social hearth repair ; 
And every bliss that man can share, 

Comfart while here, and hope above, 
AU that can prompt warm friendship's prayer. 

Crown thee and thine with peace and love. 



c 2 



ON THE 



PRAYER OF THE POOR PUBLICAN. 



" God be merciful to me — a sinner." 



Thine was a brief, but penitential prayer, 
It sought no sin to palliate, gloss, or hide ; 

Faith, hope, and love, had in it each its share. 
And by all three thou went'st home justified. 



SONNET, 

IN MEMORY OF MARY JESUP, OF HALSTEAD. 



WKITTEIJ IN A VOLUME OF SELECTIONS FEOM HER 
LETTERS, &c. 



A Christian matron of the self-same school 

With her whom he of Patmos knew, and loved, 

Like her, for every Christian grace approved ; 

Minding like things, by the same simple rule 

Seeking to walk ; and in delight, or dool, 

Tread duty's path, with thoughts which rarely roved 

Beyond that narrow way : by scorn unmoved, 

And willing, for Christ's sake, to be a fool ! 

I knew thee well ; thy daily walk in life, 

Thine hourly converse by the household hearth ; 

Thy cheerfulness, more gladdening far than mirth. 

Since with no after pain or sorrow rife ; 

And gratefully, as mother, friend, and wife, 

Can give this faithful record of thy worth. 



A REQUIEM, 



FOR MY YOUNG FRIEND, A. B. F. 



The flowers of spring are blooming fair, 

To greet the sunny May ; 
The lark is singing high in air 

His spirit-stirring lay ; — 

While thou — a lovelier, brighter flower 
Than earth's rich gardens know, 

Hast faded in thy spring-tide hour, 
To bloom no more below ! 

And hushed is now that gentle voice, 
Which, more than sky-lark's glee. 

Oft made their grateful hearts rejoice, 
Who loved and cherished thee. 



A REQUIEM FOR A. B. F. 23 

But not like flowrets of the Spring, 

Which fade, and are forgot ; 
Or melodists, which cease to sing, 

And are remembered not ; — 

Shall THY loved name and memory be ! 

These in our hearts shall live ; 
Like sunbeams on a stormy sea, 

The light of hope to give. 

As bright and fair, but not so brief. 

Thine image haunts us yet ; 
And thoughts that lighten present grief 

Shall soothe our long regret. 

For in thy modest, humble worth, 

No meteor charms were seen ; 
Its sweetest grace was not of earth. 

But heavenly, and serene. 

Tried by this only sterling test, 

'T will live to future years ; 
And they who knew and loved thee best. 

May mourn — with pangless tears. 



24 A REQUIEM FOR A. B. F. 

For oh ! if ever for the dead 

These flow without alloy, 
And almost seem, while they are shed, 

Too pure, too sweet for joy i — 

Such should be thine ! with humble trust, 

Let them be meekly given 
By those who mourn a child of dust^ 

Become an heir of heaven ! 



NEW- YEAR VERSES, 1841. 



Eighteen hundred forty ! thou 
Hast for aye departed now : 
All thy fitful hopes and fears, 
All thy transient smiles and tears, 
All thy many anxious schemes,— 
Now appear like fading dreams ; 
Such as owed to Time their birth 
Have but proved themselves of earth, 
Born to dazzle and to die, 
Linked not with Eternity. 



26 NEW- YEAR YERSES. 

Yet, among them, there might be 
Some — set to a loftier key ; 
Hopes— more noble and sublime 
Than belong to things of time ; 
Fears — of holier, happier force, 
Heavenly wisdom's hidden source ; 
Smiles — enkindled from within ; 
Tears — called forth for conscious sin ; 
Schemes — that had a wider scope 
Than the worldling's sordid hope. 

Such were not of Thne^ alone ; 
Such should not with him have flown : 
Time ! thy rapid pinions stay ; 
Bear not such, as gauds, away ; 
Winnow from the grain the chaff, 
Give us back the better half 
Of our by-gone hopes and fears, 
Schemes and projects, smiles and tears ; 
We should own our loss — our gain, 
In the few that might remain. 



NEW- YEAR YERSES. 27 

What avails on Time to call ? 
Things like these own not his thrall ; 
His the earthly^ and diurnal^ 
Not the heavenly, and eternal ! 
Look, with faith, and hope, and love, 
"Unto One, enthroned above ! 
To His Son's atonement turn ; 
From His Holy Spirit learn 
Aspirations which can climb 
To Eternity — ^from Time ! 

Eighteen hundred forty-one ! 
Hailed hy many I known to none ! 
Gladsome bells, with merry peal. 
To thy hirth have set their seal ; 
Who may hear thy parting knell^ 
God ! and he alone, can tell ! 
Joyous tongues around express 
For thee — hopes of happiness ; 
Sobered hearts, too, here and there, 
Greet thee with a voiceless prayer ! 



28 NEW- YEAR YERSES. 

But thy glory — and thy gloom 

Still are in the future' s womb : 

Whatsoe'er of good, or ill, 

Shall be given thee to fulfil. 

May we look to Him, alone, 

"Who can make that good our own \ 

Who can guard us from each ill, 

While we seek to do His will ; 

And when we from Time must sever, 

Take us to Himself — for ever ! 



SONNET, 



TO THE MAKQUIS OF NOKTHAMPTON. 



What Milton, in his plenitude of fame. 
Promised to him who kept his house from harms, 
" Captain, or colonel, or knight in arms ! " ^ 
Kind friend, thy courtesy from me might claim : 
And if not mine the power to bid thy name 
Have for remote posterity such charms, 
An equal gratitude my bosom warms, 
Giving my humbler verse as proud an aim ! 
A purer meed than wealth or rank can seize 
Is won by him — who hath an eye to see, 
A heart to feel the worth of song, like thee ; 
To him the immortal Muse herself decrees, 
What thou hast done unto the least of these 
My votaries — shall survive as done to me ! 



* See Milton's Sonnet, written by him " when the assault was intended to 
the city." 



THE YELLOW-HAMMER; 

A SONG, BY A SUFFOLK VILLAGER. 



SAD yellow-hammer ! that singest to me, 

While blows by my window the swinging birch tree ; 

That sorrowful cadence is sweet to mine ear. 

For it seeks the forgotten, and summons them here, 

O sad yellow-hammer ! what long years ago 
Through the old woody places we two used to go ; 
Just that very note falling from bough after bough. 
It seemed the same bird that sits singing here now. 

O sad yellow-hammer ! there was a dun cow 
Used to be always grazing, where space would allow 
The tall grass to shoot up, and primrose leaves green. 
Beside the park palings the tree stems between. 



THE YELLOW-HAMMER. 31 

sad yellow-hammer ! a little black dog 
"Used to flit like a spirit through brier and bog ; 
The violets all purple bent under its tread, 

And the rose-leaves fell down on its beautiful head. 

You may go to those woody lanes day after day, 
But the cow and the dog they are always away ; 

1 hear in the dim shade, un-life-lighted now. 

But the sad yellow-hammer that sings on the bough. 

When Summer was Summer, beneath those green trees, 
A musical voice used to blend with the breeze ; 
I never went roaming the hazel-wood's side. 
But a dark eye flashed by me, a step at my side. 

I 've outgrown the childhood when we wandered so. 
And for hazel-nuts caring have left long ago ; 
But, sad yellow-hammer, within the birch bough, 
I care for the tones thou art bringing back now ! 

sad yellow-hammer ! while thou sing'st to me, 
A carol comes floating far over the sea ; 
A light laugh is ringing where billows gleam pale, 
And a distant voice singing to dare the wild gale. 



32 THE yellow-hammer, 

sweet yellow-hammer ! that singest to me^ 
An anxious heart's blessing thy recompence be ; 
Ay, shake the light birch bough, and cheerly sing on, 
For cheerly thou bringest back them that are gone ! 



MEMORY OF ELIZABETH HODGKIN. 



Lilies, spotless in their whiteness, 
Fountains, stainless in their brightness, 
Suns, in cloudless lustre sinking, 
Fragrant flowers, fresh breezes drinking, 
Music, dying while we listen, 
Dew-drops, falling as they glisten ; 
All things brief, and bright, and fair, 
Many might with thee compare. 

Symbols these of time and earth ; 
Not of thy more hidden worth ! 
Charms, thy memory which endear, 
Were not of this lower sphere ; 

D 



34 TO THE MEMORY OF ELIZABETH HODGKIN. 

Such we reverently trace, 
Not of nature, but of grace ! 
By their birthright, pure and high, 
Stamped with immortahty. 

Brightly as these shone in thee. 
Thine, we know, they could not be ! 
Yet we love thee not the less. 
That thou couldst such gifts possess. 
And, still mindful of their Donor, 
Use them to advance His honour ; 
Meekly, humbly, prompt to own 
All their praise was His alone ! 



A CHASADE SONNET. 



« SOUTH-WOLD." 



Of bright blue sky, of mild and balmy air. 
Lending fresh beauty to the laughing flowers, 
And renovating Nature's faded powers, 
My first reminds us ; till we long to share 
All the sweet South can give, and wander there. 
My second boasts nor groves nor shady bowers, 
But, watered oft by warm and gentle showers. 
On a bright day looks beautiful, though bare. 
My whole is fraught with dreams of long, light days, 
By Summer loiterers passed in idlesse sweet. 
What time they sought from business a retreat, 
And on the landscape round them loved to gaze ; 
Although at times it wore a sterner phase. 
As on the sounding shore the surges beat. 
D 2 



STANZAS, 



WEITTEN IN THE LAST ILLNESS OF MY SISTEK, 
MARIA HACK. 



To me one light of other days 
Seems fading from the past ! 

And by griefs chill and sickly haze 
My spirit is o'er-cast. 

One note of life's first melody 

Seems dying on my ear ! 
And were not sorrow's fountains dry, 

Might prompt the frequent tear. 

Another star ! whose brightness fell 
On childhood's path, is quenching ; 

One more strong hold on memory's spell, 
Up by its roots is wrenching. 



STANZAS. 37 

Yet am I not left all forlorn, 

Or sunk in utter gloom ; 
For glimpses of a brighter morn 

Shine forth beyond the tomb ! 

Unto that dawn of endless day, 

I look with trembling hope. 
Striving meanwhile, as best I may, 

With present clouds to cope. 

Knowing those clouds, now dark as night. 

Obey His word and roill^ 
Who IS the Fulness of all light, 

Day's only Fountain still. 



FARNHAM CASTLE. 



A SONNET, TO JOHN BARTON. 



My brother, those, methinks, were pleasant hours, 

It was our privilege to spend, erewhile, 

In Farnham's ancient, castellated pile ! 

Lovely the landscape, from its lofty towers 

Beheld at distance ; while its garden bowers, 

Below our feet, wore beauty's softest smile, 

As if those cedars' grandeur to beguile. 

Still looking down on lawns yet gay with flowers. 

Nor lacked the scene within charms all its own, 

To make the few brief hours pass swiftly by ; 

But, far as courteous hospitality 

And genuine kindness could make welcome known, 

Such, unaffectedly, were prompt, and prone 

With each attraction out of doors to vie ! 



SELBORNE. 



A SONNET, TO THE SAME. 



That quiet vale ! it greets my vision now, 
As when we saw it, one autumnal day, 
A cloudless sun brightening each feathery spray 
Of woods that clothed the Hanger to its brow : 
Woods — whose luxuriance hardly might allow 
A peep at that small hamlet, as it lay, 
Bosomed in orchard-plots and gardens gay, 
With here and there a field, perchance, to plough. 
Delightful valley ! still I own thy claim ; 
As when 1 gave thee one last lingering look, 
And felt thou wast indeed a fitting nook 
For HIM to dwell in, whose undying name 
Has unto thee bequeathed its humble fame, 
Pure, and imperishable, — ^like his book ! 



TO E. F. 

ON HER REAPPEARANCE AMONG HER FRIENDS, 
AT THE YEARLY MEETING, 1845. 



Once more thy well-known voice lift up, 

A Saviour's goodness to proclaim ; 
Take in thy hand salvation's cup, 

Call on thy God, and bless His name ! 
It harmonizes with the past 

Of a devoted life, like thine, 
That thus serenely to the last 

Thy setting sun should brightly shine. 
Long since first shone its morning rays, 

Its noon-tide splendour may be spent ; — 
Can coming night avert our gaze. 

While stars are in the firmament ? 
Faith, hope, and love, as stars come forth. 

Making a more than noon of night ! 
And bear this witness to thy worth, 

*Tis eventide, and round thee — ^light ! 



« A CHRISTIAN IS THE HIGHEST STYLE OP 

MAN." 



" Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto! '* 



A NOBLE thought ! and worthy to awake, 

From Rome's proud senate, in her palmy days, 

Both for the orator's and nature's sake, 
O'erwhelming echoes of accordant praise. 

" I am a man ! and therefore to my heart 
Think nothing human ahen e'er can be ; 

That sense of union can enough impart 
Of weal or woe to make it dear to me ! " 

And, truly, in such bond of brotherhood. 
To those who estimate its hidden might. 

Enough is seen, and felt, and understood. 
For human hearts to own its hallowed right. 



42 - "A CHRISTIAN IS THE 

But while I pay my homage to his soul, 
"Who thus humanity could broadly scan ; 

And, looking only at their mighty whole. 
Do honour to the natural rights of man ; 

I can but feel — a Christian, by his faith, 

May humbly stand upon yet higher ground ; 

And feel to all who live by vital breath 
In a still dearer brotherhood fast bound ! 

Is he a follower of The Crucified — 

The Nazarene — who died that all might live ? 
In that one bond of union is implied 

More than the Roman creed could ever give. 

That would but link, by human sympathy, 
The noble speaker to his fellow-man ; 

But this makes known a closer unity 

Than proud philosophy had power to scan. 

There needs no more to knit in closest thrall. 
Beyond what Greek or Roman ever knew, 

Than this — '' One common Saviour died for all ! 
And rose again — to prove his mission true ! " 



HIGHEST STYLE OF MAN/* 43 

This, of itself, has a more hallowing leaven, 
Than human sympathy can e'er confer ; 

Because its loftier hopes are linked with heaven. 
And God's own word is its interpreter ! 

Then chide me not, if, yielding homage due 
Unto the noble Roman's noble thought, 

I hold the humblest Christian's happier view 
As with a higher, holier union fraught. 

Higher — as opening up a loftier line ; 

Holier — as springing from a deeper root ; 
For LOVE TO God may be pronounced divine. 

When LOVE of man becomes its genuine fruit ! 



SONNET, 

TO A YALUED FRIEND AND EX-SENATOR. 



" They also serve, wlio only stand and wait" 

Milton. 



There may be, must be moments, honoured friend. 
When, mindful of the past, thy patriot heart 
Would in their generous labours bear a part, 
Who on more public duties now attend. 
Nor can I blame thee, if such thoughts should blend 
With home's enjoyments, knowing well thou art 
Unused from any toilsome path to start 
Whose object is to bless mankind, or mend 
Bear, then, in mind the poet's lofty line, 
Chosen as my motto ! 'Twas a noble thought, 
With sentiments too elevating fraught, 
To suffer him one moment to repine ; 
And good it is an English heart, like thine. 
Should feel the calm its truth to Milton taught. 



GOING OUT OF THE OLD YEAR. 



Eighteen hundred forty-four ! 
Soon thy twelve months will be o'er ; 
And thy memory only be 
All that shall survive of thee ! 
Every year that hurries by, 
Though it wait not for reply, 
Brings, as plainly as it can, 
Serious questions home to man; 
Tells him that he is but dust ; 
That he holds his life '' in trust ! " 
And that trust's discharge demands 
Sober reckoning at his hands. 



46 ON THE GOING OUT 

Ask we, then, of by-gone years. 
What their true result appears ? 
Some of us have known enow 
To write wrinkles on the brow : 
What of wisdom have they taught ? 
What true pleasure have they brought ? 
What of real growth in good ? 
Questions these — in thoughtful mood 
It becomes us oft to ask, 
Not to turn from as a task : 
Life's best boons we all confess. 
Wisdom, virtue, happiness. 

Is the world much wiser grown. 
When the surplice and the gown, 
Turning east, or turning west, 
Are of magnitude confest. 
And, in days of fearful signs, 
Dwelt upon by grave divines ? 
Shall we never comprehend, 
That Religion's aim, and end, . 
In such things can have no part. 
But appeals unto the heart ? 
There would rear her hallowed throne. 
Rule and reign by love alone ! 



OF THE OLD YEAR. 47 

Are we happieji ? Truest bliss 
Surely should consist in this — 
In the happiness of all," 
High and low, and great and small ! 
What though every rising sun 
See new wreaths by science won ; 
Though the arts their trophies show, 
And the rich may richer grow ; 
Science, commerce, wealth, and art. 
Leave ungladdened many a heart ! 
Are there more, or are there less, 
Who now share in happiness ? 

Are we better ? Growth in good, 
Truly felt and understood, 
Means a growth in every grace, 
Shining in its proper place : 
It implies a growth in love 
Unto Him who reigns above ! 
Love to all His creatures here, 
Rendered, for His sake, more dear ! 
Tried by this unerring test, 
Genuine goodness is confest ; 
Heavenly in its aim and birth. 
It would make a heaven on earth ! 



48 ON THE GOING OUT OF THE OLD YEAR. 

If such questions, and replies, 

Bid misgiving doubts arise ; 

May those doubts but urge us, still, 

So to weigh the good and ill 

Of our daily walk in life, 

That it be not found at strife 

With His merciful intent 

Who another year hath lent : 

But, with humbled, grateful hearts, 

May we so perform our parts, 

That in each God yet may give. 

We wiser, happier, better live ! m 



THE SHUNAMMITE WOMAN. 



"Behold, thou hast been careful for us with all this care; 
what is to be dqne for thee ? wouldest thou be spoken for to the 
king, or to the captain of the host ? And she answered, I 
dwell among mine own people." — 2 Kings iv. 13. 



Woman of pure and heaven-born fame ! 

Though Scripture's hallowed page 
Hath made no mention of thy name, 

Thou liv'st from age to age ! 

Thy labour of unwearied love 

To soothe the prophet's lot, 
Prompted by kindness from above, 

Shall never be forgot. 

E 



50 THE SHUNAMMITE WOMAN. 

The chamber built upon the wall, 

The bed whereon he lay. 
Stool, table, candlestick, — and all 

These things endure for aye. 

If humble was each boon conferred. 

Their giver — nameless too. 
The record many a heart hath stirred 

Kind acts of love to do. 

And thus in human hearts to dwell, 

A pure, undying flame, 
Is a more glorious chronicle, 

Than one which told thy name. 

For ne'er was brighter lustre thrown 

On path by woman trod. 
Than her's— -who dwelt among her own ! 

And CARED FOR THOSE OF GoD ! 



HOPE FOR THE MOURNER. 



* But it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall 
De light/* — Zech. xiv. 7. 



We journey through a vale of tears, 

By many a cloud o'ercast ; 
And worldly cares, and worldly fears, 

Go with us to the last! 
Not to the last! Thy word hath said. 

Could we but read aright ; 
Poor pilgrim ! lift in hope thy head, 

At eve there shall be light ! 

Though earth-born shadows now may shroud 

Thy thorny path, awhile, 
God's blessed word can part each cloud. 

And bid the sunshine smile. 
E 2 



52 HOPE rOK THE MOURNER. 

Only BELIEVE, in living faith, 
His love and power Divine ; 

And ere thy sun shall set in death. 
His light shall round thee shine ! 

When tempest-clouds are dark on high, 

His bow of love and peace 
Shines sweetly in the vaulted sky. 

Betokening storms shall cease ! 
Hold on thy way, with hope unchilled, 

By faith and not by sight ; 
And thou shalt own His word fulfilled — 

At eve it shall be light ! 



SONNET, 



TO JENNIE FANNY SUMNEK, OF FARNHAM CASTLE. 



SUGGESTED BY A PORTRAIT OF THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER. 



Lady, I cannot tell thee half the worth 

Our Bishop's portraiture still boasts for me ; 

The pleasant memories both of him and thee, 

And other loved ones round your household hearth, 

To which, in dull November's dreary dearth 

Of outward sunshine, it affords a key ; 

Recalling hours, whose converse, frank and free, 

Rivals what brighter seasons could give birth. 

Well sang a master of the tuneful art, 

" A thing of beauty is a joy for ever ! " 

And " golden hours," so " angel-winged," can never 

From thought and feeling utterly depart. 

Until a faithful memory and fond heart 

Be forced from friendship's sweetest ties to sever. 

11 Mo. 16, 1844. 



THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 



WRITTEN TO ILLUSTRATE A PRINT FROM RUBEN S'S 
CELEBRATED PICTURE. 



" It is finished !" — John xix. 30. 



" It is finished ! " All is done 

As the Eternal Father willed ; 
Now his well-beloved Son 

Hath His gracious word fulfilled : 
Even he who runs may read 

Here accomplished what was said, 
That the woman's promised Seed 

Yet should bruise the serpent's head ! 



THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 55 

" It is finished ! " Needs no more 

Blood of heifer, goat, or ram ; 
Typical, in days of yore, 

Of the one incarnate Lamb ! 
Lamb of God ! for sinners slain, 

Thou the curse of sin hast braved ; 
Braved and borne it — not in vain ; 

Thou hast died — and man is saved ! 

" It is finished !" Wrath of man 

Here hath wrought, and done its worst ; 
Still subservient to His plan. 

Greatest, Wisest,, Last, and First? 
God shall magnify His praise 

By that very act of shame ; 
And, through hatred's hellish ways. 

He shall glorify His name ! 

" It is finished !" From the tree 

Where the Lord of life hath died, 
His attendant mourners, see, 

Gently lower The Crucified ! 



56 THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. 

With a sister's tender care, 

With a more than brother's love. 

Manhood, womanhood are there, 
Truth's devotedness to prove. 

" It is finished ! " By the veil • 

Of the temple, rent in twain ; 
By the yet more fearful tale 

Of the dead, up-risen again ; 
By that dense and darkened sky, 

By each rent and rifted rock, 
By that last expiring cry, 

Heard amid the earthquake's shock ! 

" It is finished 1" Bear away 

To the garden-tomb its dead : 
Boast not. Death ! thy transient prey ; 

Watchers ! vain your nightly tread ; 
" Shining ones " are there, who wait 

Till their Lord shall burst his prison, 
To ascend in glorious state :— - 

'^ It is finished !" Christ hath risen. 



THE BIBLE. 



A FOUNTAIN ever springing. 
Where the wearied may repair, 

The heavy burden bringing 
Of sin, and of despair. 

A hive of honied treasure, 
Distilled from Eden's bowers ; 

Where heaven-born hope, with pleasure, 
May feed in wintry hours. 

Drink for the soul that 's thirsting, 

Comfort for those that fear. 
Balm for the heart when bursting. 

May all be gathered here. 

What added boon is wanting ? 

Thy blessing, Lord ! must give, 
The gift of faith by granting. 

To read, believe, and live ! 



SONNET, 



TO JOB'S THREE FRIENDS. 



However ye might err in after speech, 
The mute expression of that voiceless woe 
Whereby ye sought your sympathy to show 
With him of Uz — doth eloquently preach ! 
Teaching a lesson it were well to teach 
Some comforters— of utterance less slow, 
Prone to believe that they more promptly know 
Grief's mighty depths, and by their words can reach. 
'' Seven days and nights ^^^ in stillness as profound 
As that of Chaos, patiently ye sate 
By the heart-stricken and the desolate ! 
And though your sympathy might fail to sound 
The fathomless depth of his dark spirit's wound, 
Not less your silence was sublimely great / 



A SLIGHT MEMORIAL 

OF JOHN SCOTT, OF AMWELL ; 

KESPECTFULLY INSCKIBED TO HIS DAUGHTEE, 
MARIA DE HORNE HOOPER. 



Daughter of one to whom I owe, in part, 
My early fondness for the minstrel's art, 
Kindly accept, from my too laggard lyre, 
This tardy tribute to thy honoured sire. 

In childhood's dawn, in boyhood's by-gone days. 
Dear to my heart the Bard of Amwell's lays ; 
For I, betimes, was taught their worth to scan, 
By those who prized the poet, and the man ; 
And with their love of each could also blend 
The feehngs called forth by a valued friend. 



60 A SLIGHT MEMORIAL 

Whether his Muse portrayed upon her scroll 
The changeful " Seasons" as they ceaseless roll; 
Or touched the heart's more tender sympathies, 
Mourning the rupture of love's sweeetest ties : 
Or whether, with a genuine pastoral grace, 
The simple scenery round her loved to trace ; 
And tune her Doric reed, or artless lyre, 
To Amwell's tufted groves and modest spire ; 
Or, mindles show the world's vain glory frowned, 
Denounced the martial drum's discordant sound ; 
Or, true to nature's social feelings, penned 
Sonnets and rhymes to many a distant friend ; 
Whate'er the theme, truth, tenderness, in all 
Their echo woke — and held my heart in thrall. 

And, even now, in health and strength's decay, 

Aye, on this cheerless, dull November day, 

When moaning winds through trees half leafless sigh. 

And all is sad that greets the ear and eye, 

Now in my heart of hearts I cherish still 

The lingering throb, the unextinguished thrill 

Woke by the magic of his verse of yore, 

When new to me the Muses' gentle lore ; 

And gratefully confess the boundless debt 

Due to my boyhood's benefactor yet: 



OF JOHN SCOTT, OF AMWELL. 61 

Nor boyhood's only when his page I scan, 
What charmed the child, still fascinates the man ; 
And better test of merit none need claim. 
Than thus in youth and age to seem the same. 

My friend, a nobler heritage is thine. 

Than aught bestowed by any titled line ; 

For what can stars or coronets confer, 

If thought or feeling be interpreter 

Of the best homage given by heart or head, 

On which the highest, happiest fame is fed, — 

To what a birth-right like thine own implies, 

Born of a Bard ascended to the skies ! 

A Poet's Daughter ! 'tis a pedigree 

As proud, as pure, as pangless, as should be 

Desired by woman : to call him thy sire 

Whom THEY were wont to love, and to admire, 

Whose plaudits still to fame are passports true, 

Johnson and Beattie, Jones and Montague. 

While wreaths of tiieir's his memory entwine, 

I feel ashamed in thus awarding mine ; 

Yet wilt thou not that minstrel's lay disown, 

Who fain would cast upon his cairn a stone. 



RECOLLECTIONS OF A VISIT 
TO AMWELL, 

1844. 

There lingers still a charm, a grace, 
By kindred spirits known and felt. 

About each hallowed dwelling-place, 

Where genius and where worth have dwelt ; 

It casts a silent spell around. 

And makes that region classic ground. 

E'en on some by-gone battle plain, 
False glory's votary owns this spell ; 

And, heedless of the thousands slain. 
The hero's triumphs loves to tell ; 

Unmindful that the wreath he wears 

Is stained by human blood and tears ! 



RECOLLECTIONS, &c. 63 

But when, in Nature's calm recess, 
We, musing, tread the verdant sod, 

O'er-arched by sylvan loveliness, 
Where goodness, genius, taste have trod. 

Their memory — and the spot may claim, 
An homage purer far than tame. 

For this^ when man decrees the palm, 
May oft be won by deeds of wrong : 

Honours more lasting, and more calm. 
To virtuous memories belong ; 

And such may Truth itself award 

To Amwell's gentle, blameless Bard. 

Nor is it a fallacious test — 

His was a fame not soon to cease, 
That thus its influence is confest 

Where all is loveliness and peace : 
For Nature, in her sweetest haunts. 
Heeds not false glory's proudest vaunts. 



64 RECOLLECTIONS OF A 

And thus it was I thought of thee, 
Poet of Amwell ! while I traced _ 

Thy once-loved home, which seemed to be 
By many a varied beauty graced ; 

Yet, while I felt their magic thrall, 
Thou wert, thyself, the charm of all. 

It was thy taste which erst had planned 
The caverned grot, the mossy sod ; 

All round confessed thy forming hand, 
Thy feet each winding walk had trod ; — 

Until the scene appeared to me 

A poem — vocal still of thee ! 

And well its music harmonized 

With every sound that silence stirred. 

For not one harsher sound surprised. 
Than hum of bee, or song of bird ; 

Each leaf, descending from its spray. 

Fell softly, as thy gentlest lay. 



VISIT TO AMWELL. 65 

And, while I mused, I could but feel 
How suited to thy song — the scene! 

Both similar in their appeal. 

Pure, simple, natural, and serene : 

Not the less meet to be admired. 

Because by such a home inspired. 

Nor, as I oftentimes have thought, 
Since there to be a guest was mine, 

Could ever poet's fame be fraught 
With sweeter recompence than thine : 

To live — in verse of spotless worth ! 

And — in the haunts that gave it birth ! 

For fiUal love, with watchful care. 

Still o'er that peaceful spot holds sway. 

And orders all things as they were 
In her own poet's earlier day : 

Within — without^ no change may be. 

Which could efface one thought of thee ! 
F 



6G RECOLLECTIONS, &c. 

And, in a world of ceaseless change^ 
Honour to one, whose filial love 

No novelties can so estrange, 
As faithless to the past to prove ; 

But, with affection's stedfast aim. 

Would keep her father's home — the same! 



STANZAS, 



WRITTEN FOR A YOUNG FRIEND COLLECTING AUTOGRAPHS. 



When ladies' Albums were the rage, 

With ease, at any time. 
My humble Muse could fill her page 

With good or worthless rhyme. 

Alas for autographs ! such things 

Exist not in the brain ; 
But, when they spread their paper wings, 

Come back no more again. 

Of such I had no ample hoard. 

E'en in my richest day ; 
And these have been so oft explored. 

That all seem given away. 
r 2 



68 STANZAS. 

Nothing remains, then, dear Susette, 
But for each bard, like me. 

To pay his autographic debt 
By writing one for thee ! 

And thou wouldst be denied by none, 
From Woodbridge to Verona, 

Couldst thou petition every one 
^' In propria persona ! " 

1829. 



TO THE B. B. SCHOONER, 



OK SEEING HER SAIL DOWN THE DEBEN FOR LIVERPOOL. 



Glide gently down thy native stream. 

And give thy swelling sail 
To April's bright and sunny beam, 

And to its favouring gale. 

In safety speed thine onward way, 
By prosperous breezes fanned ; 

Breasting old Ocean's briny spray. 
To Mersey's distant strand. 

Thou bear'st no proud or lofty name, 
Which all who read must know ; 

Yet for its sake thou well mayest claim 
The verse I now bestow. 



70 TO THE B. B. SCHOONER. 

That name was given to honour me, 
By those 'mid whom I dwell, 

And cold indeed my heart must be,- 
Could I disown its spell. 

For all the homage fame can give 
To those who for it roam, 

That lowlier tribute should outlive, 
Which comes, unasked, at home ! 

1843. 



TO EDITH LUCY S. 



Thou bear'st a name as bright and pure 

As names of earth may be ; 
Heaven grant that it may such endure, 

Till thou from earth art free. 

Then should each fond and heart-felt prayer. 

For thee preferred to-day, 
Be heard and answered — thou shalt bear 

One — not to pass away. 

Even that new one, writ in heaven, 

Shrined in a spotless stone, 
Which unto those to whom 'tis given, 

And none beside, is known ! 

1838. 



FIRE-SIDE YEESES. 



The gladsome hearth, the gladsome hearth 
Where social thought flows free ; 

Through all the shifting scenes of life 
The fond heart turns to thee. 

The cheerful hearth, the cheerful hearth, 
Where childhood's happy voice 

Gladdens the twilight hour of rest, 
And bids each home rejoice. 

The holy hearth ! the holy hearth ! 

Around whose sacred flame 
Each household church doth daily bow, 

To plead a Saviour's name. 



FIRE-SIDE YERSES. 73 

The blessed hearth, the blessed hearth, 

By hearts encircled round, 
Whose rule of life, and on whose lips, 
The law of love is found. 

The saddened hearth, the saddened hearth, 
Whence sweetest sounds are stilled ; 

The vacant seat, the tone subdued, 
The eyes with teara oft filled. 

The quenched hearth, the quenched hearth, 

Whose flame will yet arise. 
Will yet impart its cheerful glow 

To welcome strangers' eyes. 

Thus human hearths, thus human hearths, 

Their daily records tell 
Of human hopes — extinct, overthrown. 

Which seemed unquenchable ! 

There is a home, an endless home ! 

To it we fondly turn, 
"WTiere buried hopes, immortal made, 

With purer flame shall burn. 

1841. 



THE POOL OF BETHESDA. 



" That there should be one man die ignorant, who had a 
capacity for knowledge, this I call a tragedy." 

Thomas Carlyle. 



Pale, weary watcher by Bethesda's pool, 

From dewy morn to silent, glowing eve ; 
While round thee play the freshening breezes cool, 
Why wilt thou grieve ? 

Listen ! and thou shalt hear the unearthly tread 
Of heaven's bright herald passing swiftly by. 
O'er the calm pool his heahng wing to spread : 
Why wilt thou die ? 

At his approach, once more the troubled wave 

Leaps gushing into life, its torpor gone ; 
Once more called forth its boasted power to save, 
Which else had none ! 



THE POOL OF BETHESDA. 75 

Ah ! then his spirit feels a deeper grief. 

When o'er the rippling surface healing flows ; 
His wasted limbs experience no relief; 
No help he knows ! 

Healing, and strength, and cure for all his woe, 

May linger round that sacred fountain's brim ; 
Yet all unable he one step to go : 
No cure for him ! 

No friend is watching there, whose anxious love 

For him prompt access to the pool can win ; 
Soon as the angel did the waters move, 
Others stepped in ! 

Oh ye ! who idly pass unheeding by, 

Knew ye the sickening pang of hope delayed, 
Your listless steps would eagerly press nigh. 
And give him aid. 

Ah ! wretched lot, of gnawing want to die, 

While smiling plenty mocks us all around ; 
Or, shipwrecked, watch, as we all helpless lie, 
Others home-bound ! 



76 THE POOL OF BETHESDA. 

Yet sadder far, to him who reads aright 
The story of our being's end and aim, 
The spirit darkened 'mid surrounding light 
By sin and shame ! 

To see. the impervious clouds of prejudice, 

Eound which the sunbeams pour their light in vain; 
The dead soul, fettered by the films of vice, 
Knows not its chain. 

Then if tht/ spirit freedom, knowledge drink. 

Bathed in that living fount which maketh pure, 
Oh ! aid thy brother, ere he helpless sink, 
To work his cure ! 

Hopeless, and helpless, vainly did he turn 

For help or pity to the busy throng ; 
Yet found them both in One, whose heart did burn 
With love, how strong ! 

1844. 



SONNET, 



TO THE SISTER OF AN OLD SCHOOLFELLOW, 



" Heaven lies about us in our infancy !" 

If so, we should not with indifference meet 

Aught that recalls a memory so sweet 

As one of bright and early days gone by ! 

For, could we but abide continually 

As we were wont in hours so fair and fleet. 

Like little children, guileless of deceit, 

This o'er the world were glorious mastery ! 

My school-mate's sister ! none of us can add 

One year to life's brief span, or take from thence : 

Yet ought we not, dear friend, to borrow hence 

Desponding thoughts, to make our spirits sad ; 

But holier aspirations to be clad 

In robes more white than our first innocence ! 



A WORD FOR PEACE. 



" Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you : not as 
the world giveth, give I unto you." — St. John xiv. 27. 



If such the legacy bequeathed 

By Jesus to his own ; 
If such his meek injunctions, breathed 

Ere he from earth had flown ; 
How should his lowly followers fight, 
Reading his gracious words aright? 

His kingdom is not of this world ! 

Nor by it understood ; 
The banner from his cross unfurled. 

Leads not to acts of blood ! 
The Christian's warfare is within ! 
With pride and passion, self and sin ! 



A WORD FOR PEACE. 79 

Whence come your wars, frail worms of dust ? 

What are your fightings for ? 
Envy and hatred, greed and lust. 

Which in your members war ! 
Dwells such a dark, unhallowed host 
In temples of the Holy Ghost ? 

When angels first, to shepherds' ears, 

Announced the Saviour's birth, 
What watchword did the heavenly spheres 

Pour down on listening earth ? 
Glory to God ! who dwells on high ; 
Toward men — ^good will, and unity ! 

When Christ, on Calvary's blood-stained hill, 

His life a ransom paid, 
What peaceful love, triumphant still. 

Prompted the prayer He prayed ! 
A prayer so tender, brief, and true ; — 
* Forgive ! they know not what they do /" 



80 A WORD FOR PEACE. 

'Tis by its fruit the tree is known ! 

The test of truth is love ! 
Have they, then, reverently shown. 

Theirs to their Lord above, 
Who bid their fellow-creatures bleed, 
And by their acts belie their creed ? 

Thank God ! this gospel truth, no more 
To one small sect confined. 

From sea to sea, from shore to shore, 
Shall flash on many a mind ; 

Till earth below, and heaven above, 

Join in one hymn of peace and lote ! 



TO A FRIEND ON HER BIRTH-DAY, 



1842. 



Lately known, but valued friend ! 
Many mingled feelings blend, 
When, for thee, I fain would try 
My old art of poesy. 

Could I hail thy natal day 
With its most appropriate lay, 
Full of sunshine's cloudless glow 
Should my votive tribute flow. 

As my day drew near its night, 
Like a vision of delight, 
Shedding more than sunshine round, 
Has thy presence oft been found. 



82 TO A FRIEND ON HER BIRTH-DAY. 

If — of later days — a cloud 
Hath that brightness seemed to shroud, 
Through its soft and silvery haze 
More than sunlight sheds its rays ! 

Health or sickness, time and place, 
Alter many a form and face ; 
But no change can these impart 
To a true and gentle heart. 

This my friendship first inspired, 
This preserves it still untired ; 
Well, or ill, or far, or near. 
This must make thee ever dear. 

For his sake — ^beloved by thee ; 
For thy guileless cherubs three ; 
For thine own — may grace Divine 
Ever dwell with thee and thine ! 



STANZAS, 



SUGGESTED 



BY A BEAUTIFUL COPY OF THE MADONNA AND CHILD, 



PRESENTED TO ME BY MY FRIEND MARY FRANCES FITZGERALD. 



I MAY not change the simple faith, 

In which from childhood I was bred ; 
Nor could I, without scorn, or scathe. 

The living seek among the dead ; 
My soul has far too deeply fed 

On what no painting can express. 
To bend the knee, or bow the head, 

To aught of pictured loveliness. 

And yet. Madonna ! when I gaze 
On charms unearthly, such as thine ; 

Or glances yet more reverent raise 
Unto that infant, so Divine ! 
G 2 



84 STANZAS SUGGESTED BY 

I marvel not that many a shrine 

Hath been, and still is reared to thee. 

Where mingled feelings might combine 
To bow the head and bend the knee. 

For who — that is of woman born, 

And hath that birthright understood, 
Mindful of being's early morn, 

Can e'er behold with thoughtless mood, 
Most pure and perfect womanhood ? 

Woman— by angel once addressed ; 
And by the wise, the great, the good 

Of every age accounted blessed ! 

Or who that feels the spell — which Heaven 

Casts round us in our infancy. 
But, more or less, hath homage given 

To childhood — half unconscious why ? 
A yet more touching mystery 

Is in that feeling comprehended. 
When thus is brought before the eye. 

Godhead with childhood strangely blended 



THE MADONNA AND CHILD. 85 

And hence I marvel not at all, 

That spirits, needing outward aidj 
Should feel and own the magic thrall 

In your meek loveliness displayed : 
And if the objects thus portrayed 

Brought comfort, hope, or joy to them, 
Their error, let who will upbraid, 

I rather pity — than condemn. 

For me, though not by hands of mine 

May shrine or altar be upreared ; 
In you, the human and Divine 

Have both so beautiful appeared. 
That each, in turn, hath been endeared, 

As in you feeling has explored 
Woman — with holier love revered, 

And God — more gratefully adored. 



MY DAUGHTER ON HER BIRTH-DAY, 



FALLING THIS YEAR ON THE SABBATH. 



To celebrate thy natal day 

I court no fabled Muse, 
Nor seek to deck my simple lay 

In fiction's borrowed hues. 

On lighter themes such aid might well 

Befit the poet's art, 
Yet many a feeling fail to tell 

Which thrills a father's heart. 

Unto the day that gave thee birth 

I pay the tribute due ; 
This hath its own peculiar worth, 

Demanding homage too. 



TO MY DAUGHTER. 87 

It is the sabbath of the Lord ! 

When, through our favoured isle, 
The joyful tidings of His word 

Fill many a hallowed pile. 

And hoary age, and blooming youth, 

List to that blessed lore ; 
While some, in spirit and in truth, 

May silently adore ! 

Thanksgiving, prayer, and praise should be 

The offering of this day ; 
And such, my love, I breathe for thee 

In this brief artless lay. 

Oh ! may the salibath's Messing rest 

On thee, with hallowing leaven ; 
Till thou shalt keep, among the blest, 

An ENDLESS ONE — IN HEAVEN ! 



A LAMENT. 



We knew the hour was drawing near, 

Thy signal of release ; 
When every conflict, every fear, 

For thee, loved friend, should cease. 

That hour has come ! and well may wake 

A lay of mingled tone, 
Fraught with thanksgiving for thy sake, 

And sorrow for our own. 

In thankfulness we ought to bow. 

Lamented friend, for thee. 
E'en while we mourn, remembering thou 

From suffering now art free. 



A LAMENT. 89 

When we retrace our long past hours 

Of anxious hope and fear, 
And thine of pain — could wish of ours 

Desire thy tarriance here ? 

When faith that happier lot can see, 

Which now we trust is thine, 
Selfish indeed all grief must be 

That could for thee repine. 

Yet not the less, of thee bereft, 

Full many a heart must feel 
The aching void which thou hast left, 

And own its mute appeal. 

Beside thy hospitable hearth, 

At no far distant day, 
Thy smile ^ thy voice ^ in hours of mirth, 

Were gayest of the gay. 

Nor less — ^in seasons dark and drear. 

Were we as sure to find 
Thy zeal to comfort^ soothe^ or cheer ^ 

The kindest of the kind ! 



90 A LAMENT. 

Oh ! well may I thy worth confess, 
In sunshine, or in gloom ; 

And mourn, with grateful tenderness, 
Thy transit to the tomb. 

For, dared I give my fancy scope, 

I can but feel how vain 
It were in me to nurse the nope 

To see thy like again ! 



STANZAS, 



TO ILLUSTRATE A SKETCH OF A EUINED CHAPEL. 



Turn not thou in pride aloof 
From this simple, lowly roof; 
Still let memory's gentle spell 
Save from scorn the Saint's Chapelle. 

Humble as it now appears, 
Yet its floor, in by- gone years, 
Has by worshippers been trod, 
Gathered there to praise their God. 

Even now, though 'tis but rare, 
Intervals of praise and prayer, 
Which recall its former use. 
Should redeem it from abuse. 



92 STANZAS. 

Where devotion hath been felt, 

Where the devotee hath knelt, 

Chance or change, which years have brought, 

Should not check a serious thought. 

Where Religion's holy name 
Hath preferred its sacred claim, 
While a relic can be found 
Count it still as hallowed ground. 

Hallowed — not by formal rite. 
Framed in Superstition's night ; — ' 
Ceremonial type, or sign. 
Sanctify no earthly shrine. 

But the homage of the heart. 
Thoughts and feelings which impart 
Trust in time, and hope in heaven. 
These to hallow earth were given. 



SONNET. 



" And I said, * This is my infirmity : ' but I will remember the 
years of the right hand of the Most High ! " — Psalm Ixxvii. 10. 



Almighty Father ! in these lines, though brief, 
Of thy most holy word, how sweet to find 
Meet consolation for a troubled mind, 
Nor for the suffering body less relief! 
When pain or doubt would, as a mighty thief, 
Rob me of faith and hope, in Thee enshrined, 
O be there to these blessed words assigned 
Balm for each wound, a cure for every grief. 
Yes ! I will think of the eternal years 
Of Thy right hand! the love, the ceaseless care. 
The tender sympathy Thy works declare, 
And Thy word seals ; imtil misgiving fears. 
Mournful disquietudes, and faithless tears. 
Shall pass away as things which never were ! 



A SEA-SIDE SONNET. 



Ocean ! I pace not now thy winding shore 

As in Ufa's morn, when hope and fancy gave 

Their magic beauty to each bursting wave, 

And sweetest music to thy wild uproar : 

Yet not for this I murmur ; nor deplore. 

Beholding thee still beautiful and brave, 

That I am journeying onward to the grave. 

To muse and wander by thy side no more ! 

" Unchanging, boundless, endless, and subUme," 

Thou hast been likened to eternity ! 

But truth shall manifest to every eye 

That even thou art but a thing of time ; 

While he who frames this evanescent rhyme, 

From the grave's darker depths shall soar on high. 



ONE MORE TRIBUTE 



TO MY FAVOURITE OT.D ABBEY AT LEISTON, SUFFOLK. 



The breath of Spring has o'er thee blown, 

For thou canst yet her blessing share. 
Decking, with beauty not their own, 

Those walls, which else were bleak and bare ; 
The ivy's twining wreath is there, 

And, brighter from that ivy's gloom. 
Shedding its perfume on the air. 

The wall-flower's golden bloom. 

And thine is music, even now. 
Which suits thy hoary ruins well ; 

The blackbird on the ivy-bough, 
The bee that comes to store its cell, 



96 A TRIBUTE TO LEISTON ABBEY. 

Throw round thee music's sweetest spell ; 

While its yet deeper charm is found, 
When ocean's billows proudly swell. 

In listening to their sound ! 

Thus, even in thy drear decline, 

Though thou art crumbling in decay. 
Beauty and melody are thine, 

Which cannot, will not pass away : 
With every bright and balmy May, 

And each successive leafy June, 
Thy walls in loveliness are gay, 

Thy harmonists in tune ! 

But not in man's declining years, 

Alas ! can each revolving Spring, 
To dimmer eyes, and duller ears, 

A sense of fresh enjoyment bring : 
Alike round peasant and round king, 

When these approach life's closing stage, 
Wants and infirmities must cling, 

Nature can not assuage ! 



A TRIBUTE TO LEISTON ABBEY. 97 

Has Nature, then, done more for thee, 

Than Nature's God would do for man ? 
Oh, surely not ! With eyes to see, 

And grateful hearts aright to scan, 
His mercy's comprehensive plan. 

We too, when health and strength decay, 
Might find He gives, to life's last span. 

More than He takes away ! 

The deathless wreath by wisdom twined. 

Of thankful thoughts, and feelings high, 
Beyond the ivy's we should find, 

Though iJiine be lovely to the eye : 
While hopes of immortality. 

Far brighter than the wall-flower's bloom. 
In darkest hours would still be nigh. 

To cheer us through their gloom. 

And sweeter far than bees' glad hum, 
More rich and full than Nature's choir, 

Would sound, though all on earth were dumb, 
From gold harps touched by heavenly fire. 



98 A TRIBUTE TO LEISTON ABBEY. 

Glad songs of praise ! Hope's strong desire 
To FAITH would kindle at their sound ; 

That faith in triumph might expire, 
And mightier love be crowned ! 



A STRANGER'S MEMORIAL, 



I KNEW thee not ! and unto thee 
Could be but known by name ; 

Yet thy loved memory has, to me, 
No slight or transient claim : 

'Tis one that will not be gainsaid. 

Haunting me till this debt be paid. 

However fragile be the wreath 
Thus to thy memory twined, 

Early, like thee, to fade in death ! 
Yet, if it leave behind 

Sweetness like thine — it may not be 

Worthless to some who mourn for thee, 
H 2 



100 A STRANGER'S MEMORIAL. 

The flower, whose beauty charmed the eye, 

May fade before its noon ; 
But while its odours yet supply 

Their unexhausted boon, 
Shall we regard as wholly dead, 
What can such lingering perfume shed ? 

No ! he whose cherished memory still 

In fondest hearts is shrined, 
There wakening many a tender thrill 

Of love — by death refined ; 
Whose death but makes him loved the more ; 
He is not lost — though gone before. 

For thus to live, is life more pure 
Than fleeting breath can give ; 

Because its essence must endure 
Long as the soul shall live : 

Mortality can ne'er unbind 

What links immortal mind to mind ! 



A STRANGER'S MEMORIAL. 101 

Hence they who miss and mourn thee most, 

With many a silent tear, 
Love thee too well to deem thee lost^ 

While yet they feel thee near: 
And in their spirit's inner shrine 
Communion sweet can hold with thine ! 



*' Some natural tears " must often flow, 

To think how brief thy day ; 
Yet much to soothe the mourner's woe 

May wipe those tears away: 
Oh ! mourn not for the " early blest," 
Who soonest " from their labours rest ! " 



Nor deem that all too soon his sun 
Hath gone in brightness down ; 

Because by him can ne'er be won 
Eld's honoured, hoary crown ! 

For an eternity subhme. 

Grudge not the brief date given to time. 



102 A STRANGER'S MEMORIAL. 

The age we honour — standeth not 
In long-protracted years ; 

But in a life that knows no blot 
To sadden sorrow's tears : 

Wisdom is still grey hairs to man ! 

A spotless life — its noblest span ! 



STANZAS. 



It is not alone while we gaze on the flower, 

Whose beauty enchants us — its influence we feel ; 

Its fragrance lives on to a far-distant hour, 
Triumphant o'er death in its silent appeal. 

Nor while music's full harmony round us may float, 
Is it then, and then only, we bow to its spell ; 

On the echo of many a magical note, 

In moments to come, faithful memory shall dwell. 

And thus when from friends we are fated to part. 
Should feelings and thoughts on our memory throng. 

Which should still keep their images stored in each 
heart, 
Like the odour of flowers, or the echo of song ! 



SONNET, 



ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND. 



" Another, and another, still succeeds !'* 

And one by one are from us called away, 

Friends — ^valued, loved, and cherished many a day, 

For noble thoughts and honourable deeds. 

Yet reckon not that we have leant on reeds. 

Which broke to pierce us, when, without dismay, 

In such we have reposed that trust and stay 

For which, e'en from the grave, their virtue pleads. 

The loved are not the lost ! though gone before : 

To live in others' hearts is not to die ! 

Worth thus embalmed by faithful memory. 

As dead— it were ungrateful to deplore ; 

Having outlived the grave is one proof more 

That it was horn for immortality / 



TO THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 



" The dead are like the stars by day, 

Withdrawn from mortal eye ; 
Yet unperceived they hold their way 

In glory through the sky ! '* 

Montgomery. 



Ye are gone from the saddened hearth, 
Your time-hushed tones are stilled; 

Ye are gpne from the bowers of earth, 
From the homes your presence filled. 

Ye are gone to the spirits' land, 
And we miss your looks of love ; 

Ye have joined that happy band 
Who rejoice in light above. 



106 TO THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 

And our spirits yearn below 
For the music of your voice ; 

For our longing hearts would know 
That which bids you rejoice. 

Ye have done with sin and sorrow, 
Ye are freed from care and pain ; 

Ye dread not the coming morrow, ^ 
Ye never can fear again. 

Ye have laid down those mansions of clay 
Around which sad memory hovers ; 

And your spirits have winged their way 
To scenes their pure vision discovers. 

The golden bowl is broken, 

Loosed life's silver cord ; 
And your spirits, by angels spoken. 

Rejoice with Christ the Lord ! 

Ye dwell in the pure light of love, 

Ye dwell with the Lamb who was slain ; 

Ye dwell with the ransomed above. 
And our loss is your infinite gain. 



TO THE DEAD IN CHRIST. lOt 

Oh ! tell us, ye new-born immortals ! 

Were the friends of your pilgrim days, 
When ye entered those heavenly portals, 

Shut out from your wondering gaze ? 

Or do ye, on guardian wing, 

Oft pause on your errands of love, 
In our dull ears some accents to sing. 

Some strain of that blest land above ? 

Would ye bid us look up, and rejoice; 

For ye still by our path-way attend ; 
And though hushed to our sense your glad voice, 

Your freed spirits with ours still blend. 

The mother, whose glad song of praise 
Flows to Him who hath guided her there, 

As her voice the sweet anthem doth raise, 
Forgets not the child of her prayer ! 

As the friend who so late left our side 

Takes her place in that home of the blest, 

Does she think of the woes that betide 
Those who mourn in this land of un-rest ? 



108 TO THE DEAD IN CHRIST. 

And the glorified saint who hath borne 
Life's burthen for many long yeai:s ; — 

Doth the spirit in bliss ever turn 
To the dwellers in this vale of tears ? 

Oh ! ye long, amid glories untold, 

For that fast-coming hour of re-union, 

Which shall gather to Christ's happy fold 
Quick and dead in un-ending communion ! 



A POSTSCRIPT. 

Sweet is it thus at times to feel 

Of blessed spirits, gone before us ; 
And deem, in hours of woe or weal, 

That such, unseen, are hovering o'er us. 

Still scattering, as from angel-wings. 

Those amaranth wreaths that ne'er can wither ; 
While strains from harps of golden strings 

More sweetly whisper — " Come up hither ! '* 



A POET'S MITE TO A BAZAAE. 



The age of miracles is fled ! 

Those ravens which, of old, 
The prophet in the desert fed, 

Our eyes no more behold : 
Nor can the most attentive ear 
The rustling of their pinions hear. 

Yet could our mental eye but view, 

Our hearts but feel aright. 
What faith, and hope, and love can do 

By their celestial might, 
We should not say, till these be dead, 
The power that marvels wrought is fled. 



110 A POET'S MITE TO A BAZAAR. 

*' The age of miracles is past ! " 

And if it be — what then ? 
Thy hread upon the waters cast! 

Though lost to present ken, 
It may return in after days, 
A source of gratitude, and praise ! 

be not faithless ! with the morn. 

Scatter abroad thy grain ; 
At noon-tide — faint not thou, forlorn ; 

At evening — sow again ! 
Blessed are they, whate'er betide, 
Who thus " all waters sow beside /" 

Thou knowest not which seed shall grow, 

Or which may die, or live ; 
In faith, and hope, and patience — sow ! 

The increase God shall give ; 
According to His gracious will, 
As best His purpose may fulfil. 



A POET'S MITE TO A BAZAAR. Ill 

The widow's mite surpassed, of old, 

Wealth's prouder, ampler part, 
With Him, whose vision could behold 

The giver's grateful heart : 
Thy humble offering give, like her, 
And God a blessing can confer ! 



SONNET, 



TO THE FKIEN'DS OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY CAUSE IN AMERICA. 



*' Liberty's bell" hath sounded its bold peal 

Where man holds man in slavery ! at the sound, 

Ye who are faithful 'mid the faithless found, 

Answer its summons with unfaltering zeal ! 

Let Freedom's banner to the winds reveal 

One star more bright than ever yet hath crowned 

Your country's flag ! for you to gather round 

With higher, holier hopes for human weal ! 

Your cause must triumph ; is triumphant now, 

In countless votaries, daily, hourly won 

To swell your ranks ; doubts and misgivings shun : 

Lift up in hope to heaven an unblenched brow, 

And utter in its face your fearless vow. 

Thai Liberty" s behests shall all be done ! 



SONNET, 



ON THE SAME SUBJECT, 
1844. 



" Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 



SouL-STimiiNG text! Proclaim it far and wide, 
Throughout the length and breadth of all your land ! 
Till he who runs may read and understand 
The glorious truth in these few words implied ! 
How — where that Spirit most is deified, 
The fame of freedom, by its influence fanned, 
Bidding each heart with love to all expand, 
Slavery, accurst, no longer can abide ! 
But oh ! what heavier, or more hopeless doom 
Can be a nation's or a people's lot. 
Or fling upon their fame a fouler blot, 
Withering their spirits by its chilhng gloom. 
Than one which leaves for doubt too fearful room. 
That THERE the Spirit of the Lord is not ! 

I 



WHAT IS SLAVERY ? 



Hast thou ever asked thyself 
What it is to be a slave ? 

Bought and sold for sordid pelf, 
From the cradle to the grave ! 

'Tis to know the transient powers 
E'en of muscle, flesh, and bone, 

Cannot, in thy happiest hours, 
Be considered as thine own : 

But THY master's goods and chattels^ 
Lent to thee for little more 

Than to fight his selfish battles 
For some bits of shining ore ! 



WHAT IS SLAVERY? 115 

'Tis to learn thou hast a hearty 

Beating in that bartered frame, 
Of whose ownership — no part 

Thou caijst challenge — but in name. ) 

For the curse of slavery crushes 

Out the life-blood from its core; 
And expends its throbbing gushes 

But to swell another's store. 

God's best gift from heaven above, ; 

Meant to make a heaven on earth, 
Hallowing, humanizing love ! 

With the ties which thence have birth :-— 

These can never be his lot, 

Who, like brutes, is bought and sold ; 
Holding such — as having not 

On his own the spider's hold ! 

'Tis to feel, e'en worse than this. 

If aught worse than this can be. 
Thou hast shrined, for bale or bliss, 

An immortal soul in thee ! 
I 2 



116 WHAT IS SLAVERY^ 

But that this undying guest 
Shares thy body's degradation, 

Until slavery's bonds, unblest, 
Check each kindling aspiration : 

And what should have been iliy ligTity 
Shining e'en beyond the grave, 

Turns to darkness worse than night, 
Leaving thee a hopeless slave ! 

Such is slavery ! Couldst thou bear 
Its vile bondage ? Oh ! my brother. 

How, then, canst thou, wilt thou dare 
To inflict it on another ? 



EGYPT AND THE NILE. 



The Nile is yet a nol)le stream, 

And sweeps in triumph on ; 
E'en as it swept when time was young, 

In ages past„and gone: 
When Egypt was a land whose fame 

O'er all the world was spread, 
Whence knowledge in a barbarous age 

Her light and splendour shed. 

And yearly, as, in days of yore, 

Nile's waters wide expand. 
Pouring their tributary flood 

To fertilize the land; 



118 EGYPT AND THE NILE. 

For Nature still performs her part, 

Unconscious of decay, 
Though Egypt's power, and pride, and wealth 

Have, dream-like, passed away. 

Still round Rosetta's garden groves 

A lingering beauty reigns. 
Brightening the broad and busy Nile, 

And Egypt's outstretched plains : 
The boats, with their wide sails outspread. 

Pass up and down the stream. 
As if her by-gone loveliness 

Were not a vanished dream. 

And there, in, gardens richer far 

Than fancy can portray, 
The sycamore and fig tree make 

A twilight at noon-day ; 
The date, banana, citron, lime. 

In wild luxuriance grow. 
And 'mid their brightly varied green 

The blushing roses blow. 



EGYPT AND THE NILE. 119 

But 'tis not living beauty's charm 

Which o'er old Nile hath cast 
Its magic influence ; that proud spell 

Is borrowed from " the past ! " 
The thoughts and feelings it awakes 

Most touching and sublime, 
Are linked with memories that have birth 

In the far olden time ! 

Her shepherd kings, who yet recall 

The patriarchal day ; 
Her maze of hieroglyphic lore. 

Through which we darkly stray ; 
Astronomers, who nightly watched 

The stars from highest towers ^ 
Huge sphynx and mighty pyramid. 

That speak their builders' powers ; 

Fragments of temples, in whose fanes 

To monsters — men have knelt ; 
Ruins of palaces— wherein 

Monarchs of old have dwelt ; 



120 EGYPT AND THE NILE. 

Tradition's legend, history's page. 
And many a mouldering pile, v 

Alike associate with the past 
Thy glory, ancient Nile ! 

A higher and a holier charm. 

Than even these can give, 
In many a young and guileless heart. 

Must bid thy memory live ; 
'Tis linked with sacred chronicles. 

Whose faithful records tell 
Of Pharaoh's pride and punishment, 

And captive Israel ! 

'Twas by thy side the tyrant held. 

In bondage dark and drear. 
The chosen people of their God, 

Through many a lingering year ; 
Until by his Almighty power. 

And with an outstretched hand. 
He led them forth to liberty 

In their long-promised land ! 



EGYPT AND THE NILE. 121 

And on thy stream to death was doomed 

The helpless Hebrew child, 
Had not his artless innocence 

A princess' heart beguiled ; 
For her's was woman's melting heart. 

And her's was woman's soul ; 
Nor could her cruel sire's command 

Their influence control. 

That outcast child became a man, 

And with his manhood grew 
Love of his kindred and his race, 

Sense of their outrage too ! 
Which, nursed in Midian solitude. 

Became a holy zeal, 
A heaven-born impulse, urging him 

For Israel to appeal. 

He left the plains of Midian, 

With Aaron, his compeer. 
To bear the message of I AM, 

Unto the tyrant's ear ; 



122 i:gypt and the nilk 

There, with a prophet's mien and step, 

The palace courts he trod. 
And fearlessly made known the will 

Of captive Israel's God ! 

And He who sent them was not slack 

His sovereign power to show, 
By signs and tokens manifold 

In heaven — on earth below ; 
The thunder echoed from above, 

The fire ran on the ground. 
And desolating hail poured down 

On Egypt's plains around. 

The crimsoned stream rolled by in blood, 

As with the battle-fray ; 
The insect tribes in countless swarms 

Darkened the light of day ; 
And clouds of locusts o'er the land 

Were borne on eager wing, 
While slimy reptiles thronged in shoals 

The palace of the king ! 



EGYPT AND THE NILE. 123 

Then darkness, even to be felt, 

Wrapt in its mantle dread 
The monarch's halls, the idols' shrines. 

The peasant's lowly shed : 
And last, to consummate their woe. 

Was heard a cry forlorn ; 
Proclaimings at the dead of night. 

The death of their first-born ! 

Then hurried they their captives forth, 

Encumbered with the spoil 
Of those who long had held them bound 

In thraldom's ceaseless toil : 
Thus did the might of Israel's God, 

At His supreme decree. 
From their dark house of bondage set 

His chosen people free. 

Such were the marvels which of yore 

Truth's chronicles record, 
As wrought beside thee, mighty stream ! 

To magnify the Lord ! 



124 EGYPT AND THE JSTILE. 

And 'tis the proud prerogative 
Of their time-honoured claim, 

That gives to Egypt, and the Nile ; 
Their most enduring fame. 

While miracles sublime as these 

With your remembrance dwell, 
It were a miracle more strange 

Did man not own their spell ! 
Nor can the wide earth boast a spot 

By pilgrim footsteps trod. 
Where have been made more manifest 

The mighty works of God ! 



STANZAS, 



TO A FRIEND ON HER MARRIAGE. 



'* The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich ; and he addeth no 
sorrow with it ! '* — Prov. x. 22. 



What can I wish thee, gentle friend, 

On this eventful day. 
With being's onward course to blend. 

Thy spirit'^ strength and stay ? 
For on this day there needs must be 
Full many an earnest wish for thee. 



126 STANZAS TO A FRIEND 

Yet wishes are but idle things, 

As all of us well know ; — 
While prayers may put on angel-wings^ 

And higher, heaven-ward go ! 
Since He who condescends to care 
For ALL — still hears and answers prayer. 



But answers it as He deems iest^ 

Not always as we ask ; 
For deeply be this truth imprest, 

E'en blessings wear a mask / 
And we are often Winded still 
Unto our real good^ of ill/ 

I, therefore, would not breathe for thee 
A prayer scarce understood ; 

But rather that thy lot may be 
What God sees best of good/ 

Good for thee, while a pilgrim here ; 

Good for thee, in a happier sphere. 



ON HER MARRIAGE. 127 

Be thine the blessing which His word, 

Eeplete with truths subhme, 
Instructs us is to be preferred 

To all the things of time ; 
That blessing which true riches brings. 
And addeth none of sorrow's stings ! 

May this, my gentle friend, be thine. 

And his, who shares thy lot ; 
Then — whether skies above you shine, 

Or lower, — 'twill matter not ; 
For God can temper joy's bright day. 
And smile grief's darkest night away. 

May He remain your rich reward, 

His presence ever near ; 
In 'prosperous hours your hearts to guards 

In adverse ones — to cheer ; 
So shall you own, in grateful mood. 
He can make all things work for good ! 



TRIPLETS, 



FOR TRUTH'S SAKE. 



Let sceptics doubt, philosophers deride 

The Christian's privilege, " an inward Guide ; " 

" Wisdom is of her children justified ! " 

Let such as know not what that boon implies, 
God's blessed book above his Spirit prize : 
No stream can higher than its fountain rise ! 

Let them whose spirits types and shadows crave, 

For baptism trust the elemental wave : — 

" One Lord, one faith, one baptism" still must save ! 

Let those who, like the Jews, require a sign ! 
Partake, uhblamed, of outward bread and wine : 
Thou, Lord ! within — canst make the substance mine. 



TRIPLETS, FOR TRUTH'S SAKE. 129 

Believing, in thy glorious gospel day, 

Types, emblems, shadows, all must pass away ; 

In such I dare not place my trust and stay. 

Abba! on thee with child-like trust I call ; 

In self-abasement at thy footstool fall ; 

Asking to Jcnow tut Tftee! and find Thee all ! 



TO THE PENATES. 



Penates ! in my partial eyes, 

Might I to idols bow, 
You, of all heathen deities, 

Should claim my grateful vow. 

The Naiades of the dark blue sea, 

The Dryades of the grove. 
However lovely these might be, 

Could never win my love. 

But you, beside tTie household hearth^ 

Domestic worship shared ; 
And thoughts which owed to home their birth, 

Your social rites prepared. 



TO THE PENATES. 131 

I may not, as in days of old, 

To you an altar rear ; 
But not less fondly do I hold 

Your living essence dear ! 

This still, in friendship and in love^ 

Survives to glad the heart ; 
And every gift from Heaven above 

On earth should joy impart. 

To these, till death my heart shall chill, 

Its incense shall arise ; 
And in these names I hail you still 

My household deities ! 



K 2 



SUNSET. 



It is the quiet sunset hour ! 
And in the glowing west 
The orb of day with softened power 
Is sinking to his rest : 

The ripphng stream 

Reflects his beam 
As mirrored from the sky ; 

While through the trees 

The evening breeze 
Murmurs its softest sigh. 



3UNSET, 133 

And, lovely as the scene around 

In each accordant part, 
Its soothing quietude profound 
Sinks down upon the heart. 

As evening dews 

The flowrets' hues 
And fragrance keep alive, 

So in the soul 

This hour's control 
Bids heaven-born peace revive. 

How beautiful in light and shade 

Those overarching trees ! 
The shepherd swain beneath them laid 
Securely and at ease ; 
His fleecy charge. 
That roam at large 
Or ruminate at will, 
With him partake, 
By yon still lake, 
Of quiet joy their fill. 



134 SUNSET* 

How brightly on the lake's broad breast 

The hues of evening glow; 
More richly still their splendours rest 
On that far mountain's brow^ 
The vaulted sky 
Displays on high 
The roseate tints of even. 
And earth the while 
Repays each smile 
Of beauty caught from heaven. 

Morn's splendours, vanishing too soon, 

Might more appeal to sense ; 
Or the unclouded blaze of noon 
Boast glory more intense : 

To this calm hour 

A holier power, 
An influence more sublime, 

Is given to bless 

With tenderness 
Its fleeting span of time. 



SUNSET. 135 



'Tis somewhat, in a world like this, 

Of toil, and care, and strife. 
Moments to know whose purer bliss 
Eelumes our inward life ; 

Given to the soul 

To point its goal 
In brighter realms above, 

And bid it feel 

The mute appeal 
Of faith, and hope, and love* 

By day the world's tired denizen. 

From habit, choice, or need. 
Finds all that is around him then 
A worldly spirit feed ! 

To gather wealth 

He spends his health 
Of body and of mind ; 

Or Poverty, 

"With evil eye, 
To all but self is blind ! 



136 ^ SUNSET. 

By day the thousand lures that cheat 

Our spirits by their thrall, 
Their semblances so counterfeit, 
They seem not cheats at all ! 
Then Pleasure's wile 
Puts on the smile 
Oijoy that rri'iist endure ! 
Ambition's schemes, 
Fame's proudest dreams, 
Seem lofty, noble, pure ! 

The sunset hour ! the sunset hour ! 

In lone and thoughtful mood, 
Breaks of such witching spells the power, 
And makes them understood : 

Would hearts but learn. 

And eyes discern 
The lessons it may teach. 

Its quietness 

Might truth impress. 
And sober wisdom preach. 



SUNSET. 137 



Who, thus instructed, e'er could view 

The landscape — and forget 

That soon or late, as surely too, 

Life's sun to him must set ! 

In weal, or woe, 

He too must know, 
With glory, or with gloom, 

'Mid calm, or strife. 

The sun of life 
Sink down into the tomb ! 

Whether that hour of import hisrh 

Be one to hope, or dread ; 
W^hether with this its splendour vie, 
Or clouds be round it spread ; 

Must on the use, 

Or the abuse, 
Of God's own gifts depend ; 

Boons all bestowed 

To guide our road 
Unto a glorious end ! 



138 SUNSET. 

" At eventide there shall be light !" 

'Tis God's own gracious word ;. 
But whose shall be its influence bright, 
However long deferred ? 
Not their's its ray 
Who in their day 
Have 'gainst the light rebelled ; 
^ And through their race 

Each gift of grace 
Have shghted, quenched, or quelled. 

At eventide there shall be light 
To all whose hope and love 
Lead them by faith, and not by sight, 
To follow Christ above ! 
. Who here have borne 
His cross of scorn, 
And known His saving grace 
Its power impart 
To make the heart 
His Spirit's dwelling-place. 



A THOUGHT. 



The rose which in the sun's bright rays 
Might soon have drooped and perished, 

With grateful scent the shower repays 
By which its hfe is cherished. 

And thus have e'en the young in years 
Tonnd flower's within that flourish ; 

And yield a fragrance, fed hy tears. 
That sunshine could not nourish ! 



VERSES, 



SUGGESTED BY A VERY CURIOUS OLD ROOM AT THE TAKKARD, 
IPSWICH. 



Such were the rooms in which of yore 
Our ancestors were wont to dwell ; 

And still of fashions known no more 
Even these lingering relics tell. 

The oaken wainscot, richly graced 
With gay festoons of mimic flowers ; 

Armorial bearings, half effaced. 

All speak of proud and long-past hours. 

The ceiling, quaintly carved and groined, 
With pendent pediments reversed, 

A by-gone age recalls to mind, 

Whose glories song hath oft rehearsed. 



YERSES, &c 141 

And true, though trite, the moral taught, 

Well worthy of the poet's rhyme, 
By all that can impress on thought 

The changes made by chance and time. 

These tell " a plain, unvarnished tale'* 
Of wealth's decline, and pride's decay, 

Nor less unto the mind unveil 

Those things which cannot pass away ! 

And truths which no attention wake 

When poets sing, or parsons teach, 
Perchance may some impression make, 

When thus a public-house may preach ! 



SCOTTISH SCENERY; 



AND SOME OF ITS ASSOCIATIONS. 



The Highland hills are bleak and bare, 
Yet bracing' is their mountain air 

To Scotia's hardy child : 
Nor would he, for the crops of grain 
Reared on the richest southern plain, 

Exchange that region wild. 

Well may its native's heart expand 
With filial love to such a land. 

And own the varied thralls 
Of mountains towering to the sky, 
Of vales as lovely to the eye. 

Of lakes, and water-falls ! 



SCOTTISH SCENERY, 143 

In hearts which own the strong appeal 
Of scenes like these, and justly feel 

Their influence and their worth, 
Such objects to no transient ties, 
No frail and fleeting sympathies. 

Must everrnore give birth. 

" Land of brown heath and shaggy wood ! 
Land of the mountain and the flood ! " 

As thy own Bard hath sung, 
" What shall untie the filial band 
Which knits unto thy rugged strand " 

Thy children— old or young ? 

To them thy hills are fortress- towers ; 
Thy glens are Beauty's fairest bowers ; 

Thy lakes and flowing streams, 
In storm or calm, in sun or shade, 
Have each a spell that asks no aid 

From poet's fondest dreams. 



144 SCOTTISH SCENERY. 

They in themselves are beautiful * 
And bards from each and all might cull 

Full many a theme for verse, 
Of graces and of charms a throng, 
Such as a poet's proudest song 

With rapture might rehearse. 



But more than strangers can espy, 
Unto thy children's partial eye 

Their loveliness inspires : 
On barren heath, by torrent's foam, 
Their hearts, exulting, hail their home^ 

The country of their sires ! 

Tradition hoar, or minstrel rhyme, 
With legends of the olden time 

Have peopled every spot ; 
Giving it in each heart to dwell. 
As by some individual spell, 

Its own peculiar lot. 



SCOTTISH SCENERY. 145 

Thus tower or castle, which of old 
Was of some Highland chief the hold, 

Retains its lingering sway ; 
Recalling, even to this hour. 
His fame, his valour, ana his power, 

In the old feudal day. 

The cell in which a brownie dwelt, 
Or where an anchorite has knelt, 

Hath each its record found : 
Nor less hath many a fastness wild, 
'Mid caverned rocks around it piled. 

Been rendered hallowed ground. 

For hallowed ground that ought to be 
Where Piety hath bent the knee, 

Though but on heath or sod ; 
And fearless martyrs, famed of old, 
Have met, as in their last strong-hold, 

To worship before God ! 



U6 SCOTTISH SCENERY. 

Theirs was no temple man had reared ; 
Yet justly had its use endeared 

The spot their God had given : 
Its ceiling was the vaulted sky ; 
Its walls— with ivied tapestry, 

The grey rocks rent and riven. 



Their pastor's pulpit — some rude nook, 
In which he oped the sacred Book ! 

Sometimes by lightning's glare : 
Yet hence by day and night would rise, 
In blessed incense to the skies, 

Thanksgiving, praise, and prayer ! 

Around, on many a craggy height, 
Distant spectator of the sight, 

Or, with an eager ear. 
Catching the sounds of prayer and praise. 
If darkness mocked his wistful gaze, 

Some sentinel was near. 



SCOTTISH SCENERY. 147 

'Twas his, by signal of alarm, 
To call upon the strong to arm. 

And brave the oppressor's might ; 
Or, if resistance must be vain. 
To guide and guard their helpless train, 

In swift and silent flight. 



While memories such as these endear 
Full many a glen, else wild and drear. 

And many a stern defile ; 
Well, Scotia ! may thy children love 
Those homes all fairer haunts above, 

Where tamer beauties smile. 



Even a Southron bard like me 
Can scarcely for a moment see 

Thy mountains, rocks, and vales, 
Though copied but by mimic art, 
Nor feel that such within his heart 

Eevive soul-stirring tales ! 
L 2 



148 SCOTTISH SCENERY. 

Tales of the patriot, bard, or chief; 
Annals of glory, guilt, or grief. 
Or martyred saint sublime ; 
Endeared alike to age an-d youth, 
. By the simplicity and truth 
Of the far olden time ! 



EMMA : 



VERSES SUGGESTED BY A PORTRAIT. 



Emma ! 'tis a name to wake 
Poesy for its own sake : 
Prior — when he dressed in rhyme 
Better song of by-gone time, 
Borrowing it his verse to aid, 
Emma called his Nut-brown Maid. 



But to features such as these, 
Call their owner what you please, 
All the magic of a name 
Could award no added claim ; 
'Tis their highest to express 
Childhood's simple loveliness. 



150 EMMA : YERSES 

What should painter, graver give 
Childhood's representative ? 
Eyes of mild and thoughtful tone, 
Forehead — where no care is shown, 
Cheeks just tinted from the rose. 
Lips where lurking smiles repose ! 



Thus the poet would opine^ 
Maiden all unknown ! of thine ; 
Fancy deems the likeness true, 
Those who know thee vouch it, too : 
More than this I would not ask 
Mine to make a blissful task. 

For a blissful task, I ween. 
To thy Bard it aye hath been, 
Thus brief intercourse to hold — 
Not with hearts where love is cold. 
But with one in being's prime, 
Yet unchilled by care or crime. 



SUGGESTED BY A PORTRAIT. 151 

Happy maiden ! unto thee 
Life a summer morn should be ; 
Innocence and joy the light, 
Making all around thee bright ; 
Tears of transient sorrow, born 
Pure as dew-drops on the thorn. 



What to thee the world's turmoil ? 
Wealth's false splendour, Fashion's toil ? 
One kind kiss from dear mamma, 
One bright smile from fond papa. 
In thy guileless heart outweighs 
All that worldlings prize, or praise. 

Thou art all untaught as yet 
Frigid rules of etiquette, 
In whose heartless, formal school 
Hearts are taught to throb by rule, 
Heads — to think by Fashion's sway. 
Tongues — her prompting to obey. 



152 EMMA: YERSES 

Of philosophy like this, 
Ignorance, sweet child, is bliss : 
Be thy spirit wiser taught ; 
In each action, word, and thought 
Keep that high prerogative 
Innocence hath power to give. 

By that yet unclouded brow. 
Heaven itself is round thee now ! 
Thence thy deathless spirit's birth. 
Though a sojourner on earth ; 
Thitherward it still should tend, 
Heaven its origin, and end. 

Dews that nourish morning flowers 
Dry up in day's after hours ; 
Let not such an emblem be 
Of what now should nourish thee ; 
These, if hived up in thy heart. 
Shall not thence in haste depart. 



SUGGESTED BY A PORTRAIT. 153 

But, their influence appealing 
To expanding thought and feeUng, 
These shall still, from day to day, 
Prove thy sustenance and stay 
Like the manna which was given 
Every morning fresh from heaven. 



TO 



ON HER GRANDSON'S COMING OF AGE. 



I MUST not, lady, frame a lay 
To gratify the gay and young ; 

My locks, alas ! are thin and grey, 
My lyre to joyous notes unstrung. 

My heart has throbs — not all of joy ; 

My mind to sober thought is prone ; 
The birth-day of thy darling boy ! 

Is it not, too, mine own ? 

And, past threescore, there needs must be. 
On Nature's most indulgent plan, 

Enough, methinks, to render me 
" A sadder and a wiser man ! " 



TO * 155 

Yet of this happy day, and hour, 

And all it brings to thee, and him, 
I can partake the spell — whose power 

No selfish thought should cloud, or dim. 

For HIM — what can I wish of good. 

But what his sire and grand-sire knew ? 

That HE may stand where they have stood, 
To every virtuous impulse true ! 

That he, like them, content may live 

His old ancestral groves among; 
And unto those beneath him give 

Shelter from woe, and want, and wrong. 

That he may wisely choose his friends ; 

And prove a richer meed than fame 
Is his — who seeks no selfish ends. 

But spotless keeps an honoured name ! 

For thee, my friend, what wish could hope 

Indulge — of richer, purer bliss, 
E'en giving wildest fancy scope, 

More sweet, more rich, more pure than this ? 



156 TO . 

That every fond and faithful prayer 
Of thine — with this glad day entwined, 

Thy nightly thought, thy daily care, 
May now their blest fulfilment find. 

My parting numbers, for you hoth 

A prayer and blessing ought to blend ; 

And, truth to say, I am not loth 

That thus my votive verse should end. 

Nor could I, lady, close my lay 

In words more tender, or more true, 

Than when, with heart and soul, I say, 
God bless mee — and thy grandson too ! 



DRAWING OF THE COTTAGE AT ALDBOROUGH, 

WHERE CRABBE LIVED IN BOYHOOD. 



" Fame asks not where was sown the seed, 
Or where was nursed the root ; 

But victory's palm and honour's meed 
Adjudges to the fruit ! '* 



It stood beside the broad and billowy deep, 
A humble dwelling, in its better day ; 

Over its thatch the winter winds would sweep, 
And on its walls oft beat the ocean spray : 
As years rolled on it fell into decay, 

Sharing the doom that prouder piles must share, 
And now its very form hath passed away. 

Buried amidst the wreck of things which were; 
Yet still its memory lives, cherished with grateful care 



158 ON A DRAWING 

For Genius hath immortahzed the spot ! 

Blendhig it with the Poet's deathless name, 
And casting round the memory of that cot 

The potent charm of his enduring fame ; 

Potent — ^because not won by numbers tame 
And common-place, in flowers of fiction drest, 

But by the truth, which formed his proudest claim, 
'' Though Nature's sternest painter, yet the best ! " 
This was his highest charm, his verses' truest test. 

It was not his to sing of rural swains. 

In strains Arcadian, caught from days of yore ; 
Painting their hopes and fears, their joys and pains, 

To classic models true — and nothing more ; 

He sang them, as he found them on the shore 
Of the wild ocean, " an amphibious race ;" 

Yet not unmindful, in their varied store 
Of good and ill, of each redeeming grace, 
Though few and far between, which truth allowed to 
trace. 



OF CRABBE'S COTTAGE. 159 

'Tis in the sterling truth and sober sense 

Legible in his deeply moral lay, 
Are found " the head and front of the offence," 

For which some still his graphic page gainsay : 

Poetry was, with him, no artist's play ! 
But Nature's voice, the heart's interpreter ; 

And by this standard tested, even they 
Who at his darker touches most demur. 
Must own him of his themes a faithful chronicler. 



Sailors and smugglers, gipsies, poachers, boors. 

Fishers, and publicans ; a motley throng ! 
The life these led, or in or out of doors. 

Such, chiefly, formed the staple of his song ; 

His lot was cast, by circumstance, among 
Those samples of our kind ; and are they not 

All human beings ? marred by much of wrong. 
And stained by many a foul and flagrant blot, 
They are — yet from our race, all these, divorce them not ! 



IGO ON A DRAWING 

And THIS is the redeeming charm that lends 
Its lustre to our Suffolk Poet's page ; 

A spirit of humanity, which blends 
Our lighter lot on life's eventful stage, 
With their's whose hardships seem their heritage ; 

Instructing us, ere harshly we condemn, 

To bear in mind the warfare they must wage, 

The rougher tide which they perforce must stem ! 
A lesson, taught aright, that well may plead for them ! 



Then turn not from his pages — though they bear 

The brand of much that virtue must reprove ; 
Much is there truest sympathy to share ; 

Much to be pitied ; somewhat, too, to love ! 

It is the part of wisdom from above 
To sever, as by alchymy sublime. 

Feelings and impulses to vice which move, 
From those which bid our spirits upward climb; 
The criminal to mourn, e'en while we loathe the crime. 



OF CRABBE'S COTTAGE. 161 

Hence those who know and feel our Poet's worth, 
This frail memorial of his boyish years 

Will love and cherish : here, perchance, had birth 
That mastery o'er the source of smiles and tears. 
Which still his minstrel memory endears ; 

And e'en this humble room becomes a shrine, 
Where all who justly rate the hopes and fears 

That round our human hearts must ever twine, 
Must to his well-earned fame their grateful praise assign. 



M 



THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD. 



The memory of the dead ! 
Loved in their life, lamented in their end ; 

When such from earth have fled. 
With thoughts of immortality must blend. 

We turn us from the tomb. 
Wherein we lay them, and its darksome night ; 

To catch, 'mid grief and gloom. 
Glimpses of hope, and gleams of dawning light. 

And God's most holy word 
Gives more than gleams and glimpses — to sustain 

Our hearts — however stirred. 
Declaring that the dead shall live again ! 



THE MEMORY OF THE DEAD. 163 

The memory of the dead ! 
It steals upon us in our hours of woe ; 

And, e'en while tears are shed, 
It bids them not in hopeless sorrow flow. 

For Scripture points to Him 
Who conquered death, and triumphed o'er the grave ; 

TiU eyes — by tears made dim, 
Brighten with hope, and hearts thro' faith are orave ! 

The memory of the dead ! 
'Tis the best treasure living hearts can hoard ; 

For God's own word hath said, 
" Blessed are ihey^ departed in the Lord / '* 

" Even so ! " the Spirit saith ! 
Since from their labours quietly they rest ; 

Waiting — in trustful faith. 
The glorious resurrection of the blest. 



M 2 



PORTRAIT OF JOHN BUNYAN. 



" Ingenious dreamer ! in whose well -told tale 
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail ; 
Whose humorous vein, strong sense, and simple 4|tyle, 
Might teach the gayest, make the gravest smile, 
Witty, and well employed ; and, like thy Lord, 
Speaking in parables his slighted word." 

COWPER. 



Anp this is Bunyan ! How unlike the dull, 

Unmeaning visage which was wont to stand 
His Pilgrim's frontispiece! its ponderous skull 

Propped gracelessly on an enormous hand ; 

A countenance one vainly might have scanned 
For one bright ray of genius, or of sense ; 

Much less the mental power of him who planned 
This fabric quaint of rare intelligence, 
And, having reared its pile, became immortal thence. 



ON A PORTRAIT OF JOHN BUNYAN. 165 

But here we trace, indelibly defined, 

All his admirers' fondest hopes could crave, 
Shrewdness of intellect, and strength of mind. 

Devout, yet lively, and acute, though grave ; 

Worthy of him whose rare invention gave 
To serious Truth the charm of Fiction's dress, 

Yet in that fiction sought the soul to save 
From earth and sin, for heaven and happiness ; 
And by his fancied dreams men's waking hours to bless. 



Delightful author ! while I look upon 
This striking portraiture of thee — I seem 

As if my thoughts on pilgrimage were gone, 
Down the far vista of thy pleasant dream. 
Whose varied scenes with vivid wonders teem : — 

Slough of Despond ! thy terrors strike mine eye ; 
Over the wicket gate I see the gleam 

Of SHINING LIGHT ; and catch that mountain high. 
Of DIFFICULT ascent, the pilgrim's faith to try. 



166 ON A PORTRAIT OF JOHN BUNYAN. 

The HOUSE called Beautiful ; the lowly vale 

Of SELF-HUMILIATION, where the might 
Of Christian, panoplied in heavenly mail, 

Overcame Apollyon in that fearful fight ; 

The Valley named of Death, by shades of night 
Encompassed, and with horrid phantoms rife ; 

The Town of Vanity, where bigot spite, 
Ever with Christian pilgrimage at strife. 
To martyred Faithful gave the crown of endless life ! 



Thence on with Christian, and his Hopeful peer, 
To Doubting Castle's dungeons I descend ; 

The KEY of Promise opes those vaults of fear; 
And now o'er Hills Delectable I wend 
To Beulah's sunny plains, where sweetly blend 

Of flowers, and fruits, and song, a blissful maze ; 
Till at the bridgeless stream my course I end, 

Eyeing the farther shore with rapture's gaze, 
Where that bright city basks in glory's sunless blaze 



ON A PORTRAIT OF JOHN BUNYAN. 167 

Immortal dreamer ! while thy magic page 
To such celestial visions can give birth, 

Well may this portraiture our love engage, 
Giving, with grace congenial to thy worth. 
The form thy living features wore on earth : 

For few can boast a juster, prouder claim 

Than thine^ whose labours, blending harmless mirth 

With sagest counsel's higher, holier aim, 
Have from the wise and good won honourable fame ! 



And still for marvelling childhood, blooming youth, 

Ripe manhood, silver-tressed and serious age, — 
Ingenious fancy and instructive truth 

Richly adorn thy allegoric page ; 

Pointing the warfare Christians yet must wage, 
Who wish to journey on that heavenly road ; 

And tracing clearly each successive stage 
Of the rough path thy holy travellers trod. 
The Pilgrim's Progress marks to glory and to God ! 



SPRING FLOWERS. 



The flowers of Spring, the flowers of Spring, 

They bloom as heretofore ; 
But can they to my fancy bring 

The spell that charmed of yore ? 

Ah no ! that spell, once deemed their own, 
But gladdened childhood's span ; 

And thoughts and cares of sterner tone, 
Have " made and marred the man." 

Yet with no vain repining thought 

Would I the change upbraid ; 
With beauty, and with fragrance fraught, 
' They blossom — but to fade ! 



SPRING FLOWERS. 169 

But flowers there are, though not of earth, 

More lovely far than they ; 
Which boast a more enduring worth, 

And need not dread decay. 

Truth, peace, and joy, faith, hope, and love. 

Bear, worthy Eden's bowers, 
Blossoms of beauty from above, 

The mind's perennial flowers. 

These, amaranth-like, each change defy 

That time and chance can bring ; 
Secure to bloom unfadingly 

In heaven's eternal Sprmg. 



A POET'S MEMORIAL 



OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 



" There are few books one can read tlirough and through, so, 
With new delight, either on wet or dry day, 

As that which chronicles the acts of Crusoe, 
Or the good faith and deeds of his man Friday." 



Classic of boyhood's bright and balmy hour! 

Be thine the tribute I have owed thee long ; 
Though round life's later years some clouds may lower, 

And thoughts of worldly care at seasons throng, 

I would not so its happier morning wrong, 
Or those who woke its earlier tear or smile. 

As find no meed for manhood's grateful song 
In legends wont my childhood to beguile 
Of Crusoe's lonely life upon his desert isle. 



A MEMORIAL OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 171 

I still remember the intense delight, 

The thrilling interest, wonder strange and dread, 
Which in those blissful moments, brief and bright. 

On that familiar fiction fondly fed ; 

When o'er the \olume with me, borne to bed, 
I hung enraptured at morn's earliest beam, 

Until the eventful pages, as I read, 
Appeared no longer fancy's vivid dream. 
But wore the form of truth, and history's sober theme. 



For of the tomes which thus, in early youth. 
Were most especial favourites of mine. 

Perused with willing credence of their truth, 
None might surpass, and few could equal thine, 
Daniel Defoe ! In memory's cherished shrine 

The adventures it relates are graven still ; 
Nor, till remembrance shall her power resign, 

Or worldly cares each glow of fancy chill, 
Can scenes recorded there my bosom fail to thrill. 



172 A POET'S MEMORIAL 

They rise before me now ! with fancy's eye 
I mark the wilful truant's vagrant flight ; 

The storm comes on, the sea runs mountains high, 
And penitence succeeds to brief dehght, 
Itself, alas ! as brief. The skies are bright 

Again, and he a wanderer as before ; 

Till chastisement recalls a sense of right, 

Compelling him his folly to deplore, 
An exile far from home, a captive to the Moor ! 



Once more at liberty : and Fortune smiles, 
As oft she will, the brighter for her frown, 

Upon the planter in Brazilian isles ; 

He has a home that he might call his own, 
But restless still, and soon as weary grown 

Of sober life, and patient industry, 
Again the venturous mariner is gone. 

Like one who had not known captivity ! 
Poor slaves to till his ground on Guinea's coast to buy. 



OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 173 

Again the tempest rises in its ire; 

111 may his bark such hurricane withstand ; 
Two hands are drowned ; and in the panic dire 

A third proclaims the joyful news of land ! 
Delusive hope ! the ship strikes on the sand ; 

They man the boat, and strive to reach the shore ; 
One^ only one I hath gained that lonely strand, 

To dwell in solitude unknown before, 
Than anchorite's more strict, however stern and hoar. 



A less inventive genius than thine own 

Had left our shipwrecked hero to his lot ; 
But thou, Defoe, o'er that lone isle hast thrown 

A spell so potent — who hath felt it not ? 

Unto my boyhood 'twas a fairy spot ; 
Yet to my fancy so familiar made, 

I seemed as well to know creek, cave, and grot. 
Its open beach, its tangled green-wood shade. 
As if I there had dwelt, and Crusoe's part had played. 



174 A POET'S MEMORIAL 

Fain would I dwell, did not my limits check 
The fond desire, and chide the loved delay, 

Upon thy daily visits to the wreck. 

And all the varied stores thou brought'st away. 
Needful resource of many an after day : 

Fain would I paint the home thy hands upreared ; 
Thy household goods and chattels, too, portray. 

Whose rude contrivance many a sad hour cheered. 
Which if to idlesse given more wretched had appeared. 



Nor is thy story useless, if it serve 

To point this moral to the stripling's heart, 
That nothing like necessity can nerve 

The man to play a truly manly part ! 

The mother of invention, nurse of art, 
What is there, needful, which we do not owe 

To her compulsion ? Steersman's guiding chart, 
His trembling needle, pointing where to go ; 
The anchor which he casts, the lead he drops below ! 



OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 175 

The beacon's warning light, whose star-like beam 
Flings out its friendly lustre o'er the wave ; 

The philanthropic chemist's lamp, whose gleam 
In safety lights the miner's darkest cave, 
Which noxious damps might render else his grave ! 

All medicine's triumphs, and mechanics' power, 
Philosophy's research, when Franklin gave 

The electric rod to guard the loftiest tower ; 
These are thy trophies all, and glorious is thy dower. 



But, not to moralize too long, I turn, 

Crusoe, to thy delightful page once more; 
And from thy homely journal gladly learn 

A less ambitious, more attractive lore. 

With thee I now thy loneliness deplore, 
And share thy griefs, a hapless cast-away ; 

Anon, with humble hopes, from Scripture's store. 
Culled in adversity's instructive day, 
With thee, in thy lone isle, I meditate and pray. 



176 A POET'S MEMORIAL 

I may not pause o'er each attractive scene 
Or object in thy varied record traced, 

Which, Uke a brighter spot of Uveher green, 
Shines an oasis in the desert waste 
Of thy existence ; yet some such are graced 

With so much simple beauty, they must dwell 
In vivid hues and forms yet uneffaced 

On Memory's tablet, while her magic spell 
Can render records there by time indelible. 



Witness thy clusters of ripe grapes, uphung, 

With prudent forethought, in the sun to dry ; 
For them my mouth has watered oft, when young, 

As fruit with which no grocer's stores could vie. 

The grains of barley, thrown unthinking by. 
Awakening in thy heart such glad surprise 

W^hen bearing ears of corn ! a mystery 
That well might fill with thankful tears thine eyes, 
Tears with which childhood's heart could freely sym- 
pathize. 



OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 173 

Next came thy live-stock : what a group was thine ! 

Thy cats, I scarcely thought them like our own : 
Thy goats, how often have I wished them mine ! 
But most of all was childhood's fancy prone 
To envy thee thy parrot ! how its tone. 
When thou hadst taught it speech, must strike thine 
ear, 
In that unspeaking solitude alone ! 
Though but an echo of thy voice, 'twas dear, 
Recalling thoughts of sounds thou never more mightst 
hear ! 

And then thy cumbrous, over-sized canoe ! 

Would all projectors learn that tale by rote. 
Many, I ween, would make far less ado 

With schemes that, like thine own, can never float : 

Let those who now thy want of foresight quote, 
Learn to correct their error too, like thee ; 

For thou didst build thyself a smaller boat, 
Nor could thy hopes surpass my boyish glee. 
What time thy bark was launched, thyself once more 
at sea! 



178 A POET'S MEMORIAL 

But what were these, or all the produce rich 
Of thy tobacco, lemons, grapes, and canes, 

Compared with him, whose name hath found a niche 
In childhood's heart? whose memory still retains 
Its greenness there, 'mid losses, cares, or gains 

Of later life : I scarce need write his name ; 
Partner of all thy pleasures and thy pains, 

His was a servant's, friend's, and brother's claim. 
And peerless in all three shines faithful Friday's fame ! 



How much in him to love, and to admire. 

Erst charmed my boyhood, cheers my manhood 
still! 

His touching meeting with his aged sire. 
Whom cruel cannibals brought there to kill, 
Both then, as now, my eyes with tears could fill. 

His simple awe, and wonder ever new ; 

His broken English ! when did author's skill 

Hold up a lovelier portraiture to view ? 
Or king a subject boast more loyal, warm, and true ? 



OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 179 

Nor less of sympathy, and interest deep, 

Thy fears and perils wakened in my breast ; 
When watchful vigils thou wert wont to keep, 

And barbarous Indians threatened to molest ; 

Or when dire sickness robbed thy couch of rest : 
But, most of all, I held my breath with awe, 

At that strange foot-mark on the shore imprest ; 
More fearful than if traced by lion's paw : 
Thy panic at that sight let Cruikshank's pencil draw ! 



What need to dwell on all of dark or bright, 
With which thy varied pages richly teem ? 

Now faint and dim, like visions of the night, 

To Memory's glance; now fair as morning's dream, 
Or glowing, like the west, in sunset's gleam, 

When gorgeous clouds are tinged with burnished gold: 
Enough is said to prove how much my theme 

Possesses of attractions manifold, 
The love it early won in after life to hold. 



K 2 



180 A POET'S MEMORIAL 

But I must bid my pleasant theme adieu . 

Though lingering thought upon it fain would dwell. 
Grateful I feel for what can thus renew 

A sense of youth's once bright and joyous spell; 

And call back from the dim and shadowy cell 
Of Memory visions of departed days ; 

Yet, ere I take a long, a last farewell, 
Forgive me, reader ! if my Muse essays 
To take her leave of thee in fitting minstrel phrase. 



Art thou a stripling — in the bloom of youth 

Feasting on fiction in a garb so fair ? 
Yet may these pages teach thee useful truth. 

If they inculcate wisdom, forethought, care ; 

And show thee how to suffer, and to bear 
With patient hope and fortitude, the ill. 

Which all who live or more or less must shar^ : 
So shalt thou best the author's aim fulfil, 
Avoid his hero's harms, partake his pleasures still. 



OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 181 

Art thou a worldling — in life's thoughtful noon, 

Toiling in traffic's ceaseless strife and din ? 
Or seeking, as thy being's proudest boon. 

Ambition's heights, or Fashion's fame to win ? 

Turn from each glittering bait and specious gin ; 
Let a mere school-boy's tale this lesson teach. 

All that ennobles man is found within ; 
And no bad moral doth our hero preach. 
Making the best he can of good within his reach. 



Art thou a veteran— in the vale of years, 

Yet looking back, at times, with wistful gaze, 
Upon the pains and pleasures, hopes and fears. 

Shadow and sunshine, of thy by-gone days ? 

Here, if no guilt upon thy conscience weighs. 
And generous feelings in thy heart still glow. 

Some of the brightness which so fondly plays 
Around the past, the present shall bestow 
And thou in hoary age a child's enjoyment know ! 



182 A MEMORIAL OF ROBINSON CRUSOE. 

JBut now- — ^Farewell to Crusoe, and his isle ! 

Farewell to his man Friday ! best of men, 
His toils, his cares, his sorrows to beguile ; 

'' We ne'er shall look upon their like again ! " 

Unless another, with as deep a ken 
As thine, Defoe ! into these hearts of our's, 

Should come once more on earth, and wield his pen 
To call up mental sunshine, mixt with showers. 
For childhood, youth, and age, by his creative powers ! 



FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY. 



" And now abideth Faith, Hope, Charity, these three ; but the 
greatest of these is Charity ! " 



Still abide the heaven-born three, 
Faith, and Hope, and Charity ! 
Faith — to point our heaven-ward goal, 
Hope — an anchor to the soul : 
Faith and Hope must pass away ; 
Charity endure for aye ! 

Hope must in possession die ; 
Faith — in blissful certainty : 
These to gladden earth were given ; 
Love, or Charity — for heaven ! 
For, in brighter realms above. 
Charity survives — as Love. 



184 FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY. 

Love to Him, the great I AM ! 
Love to Him, the incarnate Lamb ! 
Love unto the Holy Ghost ! 
Love to all the heavenly host ! 
Love to all the human race, 
Sanctified by saving grace ! 

In that pure and perfect love, 
Treasured up for heaven above. 
Christian ! may thy grateful heart 
Have its everlasting part ; 
And, when Faith and Hope are mute, 
rind in endless Love their fruit ! 



SONNETS, WRITTEN AT BURSTAL. 



INTRODUCTORY YERSES. 



Memorials of a pleasant day, 
With birds among their bowers, 

And friends as light of heart as they, 
'Mid groves, and meads, and flowers. 

Records of feeling, and of thought. 
Of Nature's own revealing ; 

From her own living presence caught, 
To natural hearts appealing. 

In faith and hope I cast ye forth. 
Like bread upon the waters ; 

Trusting your unpretending worth 
To Nature's sons and daughters. 



SONNET I. 



BERRY'S HILL. 



Who gave this spot the name of Berry's Hill 

I know not, and in sooth care not to know, 

For names, like fashions, ofttimes come and go, 

By mere caprice of arbitrary will : 

But 'tis a lovely spot ! enough of skill 

Hath been employed to make it lovelier show, 

Yet not enough for Art to overthrow 

What Nature meant should wear her livery still. 

That gleaming lakelet, sparkling in the ray 

Of summer sunshine ; these embowering trees, 

Rustled each moment by the passing breeze ; 

And those which clothe with many-tinted spray 

Yon wooded heights; green meads with flowrets gay; 

Each gives to each yet added powers to please. 



SONNET II. 



THE SEAT AT BERRY'S HILL. 



It was a happy thought — upon the brow 
Of this shght eminence, abrupt and sheer, 
This artless seat and straw-thatched roof to rear ; 
Where one may watch the labourer at his plough ; 
Or hear, well-pleased, as I am listening now. 
The song of wild birds falling on the ear. 
Blended with hum of bees, or sound more drear. 
The solemn murmur of the wind-swept bough. 
Tent-like the fabric ! in its centre stands 
The sturdy oak, that spreads its boughs on high 
Above its roof ; while to the unsated eye 
Beauteous the landscape which below expands ! 
Where grassy meadows, richly cultured lands. 
With leafy woods and hedge-row graces vie. 



SONNET III. 

THE SAME SCENE, CONTINUED. 



It were, methinks, no very daring flight 
Unto a poet's fond imagination, 
To make this tent a prouder habitation ; 
Where Nature's worshipper and votary might. 
With each appropriate and simple rite. 
Bow to her charms, in quiet adoration 
Of Him who meant his visible creation 
Should minister to more than sense or sight! 
Oh, then, this tent-like seat might well become 
A temple — more befitting prayer or praise, 
Than the mere listless loiterer's idle gaze ;^ 
And if it struck the sordid worldling dumb. 
Proving of Nature's charms the countless sum, 
'Twere not less worthy of the poet's lays ! 



SONNET IV- 

IN THE SHRUBBERY, NEAR THE COTTAGE. 



Fair Earth ! thou surely wert not meant to be 
Time's show-room ! but the glorious vestibule 
Of scenes that stretch beyond his sway and rule, 
Or that of aught we now can hear or see ! 
For he who most intently looks on thee, 
Must be a novice e'en in Nature's school, 
In one far higher a more hopeless fool, 
To go no further with her master-key ! 
Beautiful as thou art, thou art no more 
Than a faint shadow, or a glimmering ray. 
Of beauty, glory, ne'er to pass away ; 
Nor thankless is thy minstrel, at threescore, 
While he can revel in thy bounteous store, 
To look beyond thy transitory day. 



SONNET V. 



THE BURST AL LAKELET. 



The dweller on Ullswater^s grander shore, 
Or Keswich's^ would deny thee any claim 
Even to bear a lakelet's borrowed name, 
Of thy small urn so scanty seems the store ! 
And such would, doubtless, scout the poet's lore, 
Who one poor Sonnet should presume to frame 
In celebration of thy humble fame. 
Although to their's he could award no more ! 
Yet all the pomp and plenitude of space. 
They boast, can but reflect the wider scene 
Of beauty round : as lovely is the sheen 
Of thy clear mirror, in which now I trace 
The softened impress and the heightened grace 
Of earth and sky, both silent and serene ! 



SONNET VI. 



THE TWO OAKS. 



There are, among the leafy monarcbs round, 
Trees loftier far than you, of ampler size. 
And likelier to attract a stranger's eyes, 
With sylvan honours more superbly crowned : 
And yet in you a higher charm is found. 
And purer — to our sweetest sympathies, 
Than all that Nature's lavish hand supplies 
To others — growing on this fairy ground. 
Ye are mementos of a wedded pair, 
Once wont this loved, familiar scene to tread ! 
Death, which has lowly laid one honoured head. 
Has but conferred on you an added share 
Of love and interest ; since to us ye are 
Memorials of the livinsr ! and the dead ! 



SONNET VIL 



EVENING EFFECT ON THE YALLEY. 



*' Earth has not any thing to show more fair !" 

So Wordsworth sang, what time he made his theme 

The bridge that arches Westminster's proud stream : 

Yet had he seen this lovely valley wear 

The lingering brightness day hath yet to spare, 

Each lengthening shadow, and each sunny gleam, 

Silent in all their changes as a dream ! 

He might have doubted which the palm should bear. 

And now calm eve would draw her curtain grey 

Over the melting landscape's mellower flush ! 

But for the brightly-glowing roseate blush 

That tinges still the west : — it fades away ! 

And Nature owns the meek and gentle sway 

Of pensive Twilight's universal hush ! 



SONNET VIII. 



BURSTAL, IN THE FOUR SEASONS. 



How sweet it were, methinks, to sojourn here, 

And watch the seasons in their changeful flight ; 

To see the Spring bedeck, with wild flowers bright, 

The valley and those swelling uplands near ; 

To mark the Summer, in her blithe career, 

Bursting in rich luxuriance on the sight ; 

And matron Autumn reassert her right 

To crown with harvest boons the circling year ! 

Nor undelightful would it be, I ween, 

At Christmas, here to trim the cottage fire,, 

Pore o'er the lay, or tune the Muses' lyre, 

What time rude Winter, with his sterner mien. 

In spotless snow arrayed the altered scene, 

And hushed in stillness all the woodland choir. 



TO I. AND G. H. 

ON THEIR LEAYING WOODBRIDGE. 

WITH A COPY OF BURNS'S POEMS. 



In memory of the hours ' ~^ 

By us together spent ; 
Strewed with the thornless flowers 

Of pangless merriment. 
In memory, too, of some, 

When clouds were in our sky ; 
When hearts with grief were dumb, 

And tears were in each eye ! 
For the bitter, and the sweet, 

Which endear alike " lang syne," 
Hearts like your own will greet 

This trivial gift of mine. 
The life we live on earth 

Is dark and bright by turns ; 
And in sorrow, or in mirth, 

Few bards can equal Burns ! 



FEAMLINGHAM CASTLE. 



Fallen as thou art, dismantled pile ! 

From thy once palmy state ; 
Thy ruins may outlast a while 

Splendours of later date. 

Still stand thy battlemented towers, 

Firm as in by-gone years; 
As if within yet ruled the powers 

Of England's haughtiest peers^ 

Since thou, by kings or nobles proud, 
Wert first upreared and swayed, 

Piles grand as thou their heads have bowed 
In dark oblivion's shade : 
o 2 



196 FRAMLINGHAM CASTLE. 

And glittering structures, richly dight. 
Have, long since thy decline, 

Crumbled away, and left no site 
Their memory to enshrine. 

But thou, at least to distant view. 

Still bear'st a gallant foim ; 
Thy canopy — heaven's vault of blue, 

Or crest — the lowering storm.r 

Still upon moat and mere below 
Thine ivied towers look down ; 

And far their giant shadows throw 
With feudal grandeur's frown. 

And though thy star for aye be set. 

Thy glory past and gone, 
Fancy might deem thine inmate yet 

BiGOD ! or Brotherton ! 

Or Howard brave, who fought and died 
On Bosworth's bloody field ; 

Or bigot Mary, who the tide 
Of martyr-blood unsealed ! 



FRAMLINGHAM CASTLE. 197 

Such were thine inmates ! Who are left 

As dwellers in thy hold ? 
The abject, and the hope-bereft, 

The helpless, poor, and old ! 

Yet, haply, among these may be 

Some, to the world unknown. 
Who hold a higher hope in fee, 

Than Mary on her throne ! 



HELMINGHAM HALL. 



" The stately homes of England ! 

How beautiful they stand, 
Amidst their tall ancestral trees, 

O'er all the pleasant land ! " 

Hemans. 



Such is this ancient moated Hall ; 

And on it as I fondly gaze, 
Well may it unto thought recall 

The visions of departed days. 

Imagination might, at will. 

Bring back its revelry and mirth ; 

And people its apartments still 

With inmates proud, of noble birth. 



HELMINGHAM HALL. lyy 

Such, in youth's visionary hour, 

Had been, perchance, my chosen theme, 

Till, duped by Fancy's vivid power, 
I half believed her idle dream. 

But now far stronger is the spell, 

Beyond what words can e'er express, 

Which unto thought appears to dwell 
In its own silent loneliness ! 

Though much of what was gay and bright, 
Which once its earlier annals crowned. 

And seemed to lend it life and light. 
Within its walls no more be found ; 

Enough is left to tell a tale 

Of all of which the world is proud ; 
And waken thoughts of more avail 

Than those which court us in a crowd I 

For raany a relic still is there 

Of its old pomp and pageantry ; 
Of fashions — that once charmed its fair. 

And swayed its gallant chivalry. 



200 HELMINGHAM HALL. 

And some there are of purer grace, 
To win ihe eye, to reach the heart; 

Where admiration yet may trace 
The touches of a master's art. 

Memorials on its walls yet live, 

Bright tints, fair forms, which time defy ; 
Imparting ail that these can give 

Of earth's frail immortality ! 



A POSTSCRIPT IN 1845. 



Such wert thou, as I saw thee last, 
When " silent loneliness" was thine; 

But now a change has o'er thee past. 
And renovated glories shine. 

I wish the story may he true. 

And that thou mayst new charms have won 
In other eyes — though in my view 

Thy beauty may be half undone. 



MARY'S DIRGE. 



'* To live in hearts we leave behind— 
Is not to die ! " 

Campbell. 



If this be true — thou art not dead ! 
For though thy outward hfe be fled, 

Thine inward one still Uves 
In more than one void aching heart, 
And there, though tears unbidden start, 
Unto its own immortal part 

Undying sweetness gives. 



202 MARY'S DIRGE. 

For what is life ? Not empty breath ! 
Nor do we sink in utter death 

When that frail boon is gone : 
Still true those blessed words must be, 
E'en now, we trust, fulfilled to thee, 
*' The pure in heart their God shall see ! " 

And thou art living on ! 

Living a life more pure and blest 
Than can, in this world of un-rest, 

On mortals be conferred : 
A life to endless bliss allied. 
Which He, our sinless Saviour, died 
For his own ransomed to provide, 

And sealed it by His word ! 

Thy kindness, truthfulness, and love, 
Thy gifts and graces from above. 

Which earth could not supply ; 
These formed, in truth, thy hidden life, 
Were with unearthly blessings rife. 
They perished not in time's short strife, 

Nor can they ever die ! 



MARY'S DIRGE, 203 

Hence I can echo not their tone 
Who of thee speak with grief alone, 

And, in short-sighted gloom, 
Lament for thy untimely lot, 
As if they understood it not. 
Or in their sorrow half forgot 

It ends not with the tomb ! 

I sorrow — but mourn not for thee ! 
For oh ! what human lot could be 

More free from earthly leaven, 
Than that which lent thee here below 
The freshest brightness earth can show. 
The purest bliss it can bestow, 
Then gave thee, while unchilled their glow. 

To vanish into heaven ! 

I mourn for them — yet left behind, 
Whose hopes, loves, joys, were intertwined 

Around thy presence bright ; 
O'er whom it cast a gentle ray, 
Chasing some transient clouds away. 
And shedding light surpassing day, 

Now veiled awhile in night. 



204 MARY'S DIRGE. 

But not a night which ought to mar 
Immortal spirits ! Like a star, 

Thy memory there may rise ! 
To such a radiant angel still ; 
Love's gentle mission to fulfil ; 
And for Grief's icy, sickening chill, 
To waken Hope's ecstatic thrill, 
With Faith's — triumphant over ill, 

In realms heyond the skies ! 



A POET'S MEMORIAL 



OF A DEPARTED FRIEND. 



The modest violet, half concealed from sight, 
But scattering odours round it — lovelier seems : 

The spotless lily, by the moon's pale light, 

Shows yet more beauteous in its silvery beams : 

The skylark, viewless in heaven's arch above, 

Appears unearthly music to impart : — 
Each grace and blessing worthiest of our love 

Eludes the eye — but more to touch the heart. 

And such the charm of thy retiring worth, 

Which shunned display, nor ever sought to roam 

Beyond the spot to which it owed its birth, 

" True to the kindred points of heaven and home ! " 



206 MEMORIAL OF A DEPARTED FRIEND. 

Oh ! may the memory of that worth yet give 
To its late earthly home a hallowing leaven ; 

There in the spirits of survivors live, 

And whisper comfort from thy home in heaven ! 



" JESUS CHRIST THE SAME YESTERDAY, 
TO-DAY, AND FOR EVER!" 



The firmest friends may change, 
The best beloved may leave us, 

Familiar ones — grow strange. 
Or death of all bereave us. 

Where is the love undying ? 

The Friend who never fails ? 
In whom the heart, relying, 

May trust — when grief assails ! 

Behold the Lamb ! who beareth 

Believers' sins away : 
For such He ever careth — 

And now ! as yesterday ! 



TO ANNA 



IX THE FIRST LEAF OF A COPY OF THE RELIQUARY. 



Not for its minstrel worth, do we, 
Dear Anna, thus present to thee 

Our unpretending tome ; 
But in the hope that thou mayest prize 
Aught that is hnked by slightest ties 

Unto thy future home ! 

Beneath its roof, my gentle friend, 
Most of these pages have been penned ; 

And, to a heart like thine, 
The spot to which they owe their birth, 
May give them a far prouder worth 

Than critics would assim. 



TO A>'NA 



Accept them as a pledge sincere 
Of our warm wish to see thee here, 

Your wedding tour once ended. 
Because with thee the happiness 
Of one we love, and ours no less, 

Is intimately blended. 



A POSTSCRIPT; 



rsr THE LAST LZAT OF THE SAItT! TOLOtE. 



ADDED SOME TEiJlS APTEB- 



SixcE the foregoing lines were writ, 
Years have flown bv, as years will flit. 

Succeeding one another; 
And thou, a blissful maiden then. 
Hast added claims to prompt my pen, 

A grateful wife and mother. 



210 TO ANNA 



The sweetest rose will have its thorn ; 
And passing clouds the brightest morn 

May shade with transient sadness ; 
So of the ills life needs must bear, 
Thou mayst, dear friend, have had a share, 

To make more prized its gladness. 

But — be the future like the past ; 
And thou mayst confidently cast 

Thy cares on Him — who careth 
For them whose filial trust and love. 
First seek His blessing from above, 

Who all their burthens beareth ! 

1845. 



STANZAS. 



Oh ! mourn not for the early blest, 
Called from a world of care away ; 

And gathered to her blissful rest, 
In the bright realms of sunless day ! 

The more her innocence and worth 
Combine to make her memory dear ; 

The fitter seems her flight from earth, 
To that far purer, happier sphere. 

Shall we, in selfish sorrow cold, 

Mourn — when the Shepherd, in his love, 
Takes from his l9wer earthly fold 

Another lamb to one above ? 
p 2 



212 STANZAS. 

In this some danger needs must dwell ; 

Around it spoilers seek their prey ; 
But there we know that all is well ! 

For nothing can that flock dismay. 

Or shall we mourn so sweet a flower 
Appeared to blossom — but to die ; 

Because in this, its earthly bower, 
Its charms no longer greet our eye ? 

Look up ! with Faith's meek eye serene, 
Beyond the grave's dark, chilling gloom, 

And there that flowret shall be seen 
Unfolding in immortal bloom. 

The Heavenly Gardener shall we blame, 
Who hath transplanted it from sight, 

And, knowing best its fragile frame. 

Placed it where storms can never blight? 

Mourn not for her ! but rather mourn. 
Since there our sorrow cannot err. 

For some who yet on earth sojourn. 
That gladly would change lots with her. 



STANZAS. 213 

Mourn rather for the living dead ! 

Than for the seeming dead — who live ! 
These need no tears our grief can shed ; 

But those far more than we can give ! 

There are who live but in the name 
Of what the world as life declares ! 

Oh ! doubt not these more truly claim 
Our tears ; more deeply still our prayers ! 

For them let tears and prayers be rife, 

That He who still is — as of old, 
The Eesurrection, and The Life ! 

May such with pitying eye behold. 

But mourn not for the early blest, 

Called from a world of care away ; 
And gathered to her blissful rest, 

In the bright realms of sunless day ! 

2nd Month 4th, 1845. 



A CHILD'S DREAM. 



What know we of the glorious sights 

Which bless an infant's dream ? 
Or, could we guess them, what more meet 

To be a poet's theme ? 
The hope that e'en a glimpse of such 

My numbers might make known, 
To fond imagination brings 

A day-dream of its own. 

'Tis of a child of five years old 

Upon whose peaceful sleep 
Fair visions of another world 

With silent footsteps creep ; 



A CHILD'S DREAM. 215 

Soft as the dew on summer flowers, 

Or moonlight on the sea, 
The influence of that blissful dream 

To Fancy seems to be. 

The cheek, upon the pillow pressed, 

Wears joy's delightful tinge : 
The eyes are closed, yet joy's bright tear 

Steals through the eyelid's fringe : 
The lips are voiceless, yet they wear 

The sweetest smile of bliss, 
A smile so sweet, it well might chide 

The fondest mother's kiss. 

Thou happy sleeper ! might I tell 

Where now thy spirit roams, 
The lot it shares, how poor would seem 

The pomp of proudest domes ! 
Fame, wealth, or grandeur never yet 

A pleasure could impart. 
So pangless and so pure as those 

Which now possess thy heart. 



216 A CHILD'S DREAM. 

For thou art in *' the land of thought ! " 

And far hast left behind 
The fading happiness of earth. 

For raptures more refined : 
Thine seems a foretaste of the boon 

Appointed for the blest ; 
" Where the wicked cease from troubling, 

And the weary are at rest ! '' 

Thy spirit's yet unfolded bud 

May seem too young to bear 
The full effulgence of that light 

Which bursts around thee there ; 
Thy " vital spark of heavenly flame " 

May shine with trembling ray, 
Amid the bright and sunless blaze 

Of heaven's unclouded day. 

Yet, in thy measure, fancy deems 

Thy soul may now partake 
Those glories, which the harps and songs 

Of angels ever wake ; 



JL CHILD^S DREAM. 217 

And to thy sight, unconsciously. 

Are transient glimpses given. 
Whose bright beatitudes fulfil 

^ child's sweet dream of heaven f 

And is it not a lovely scene 

That greets thy vision now ? 
Where gratitude warms every breast, 

And joy lights every brow ! 
Where tears are wiped from every eye. 

And sickness comes not near, 
And hope in certainty fulfilled 

Has banished every fear ! 

What seest thou in that realm sublime ? 

The spirits of the just, 
Made perfect through the blood of Him, 

In whom they placed their trust ? 
The tuneful seraph host, that raise 

Their songs around the throne. 
Giving to God, and to the Lamb, 

The praise that is their own ? 



218 A CHILD'S DREAM. 

Or look's! thou on the Tree of Life 

Whose foliage yet may heal 
The nations — and the earlier curse 

Of Eden's tree repeal ? 
Or gazest thou upon that stream. 

Like clearest crystal bright, 
Proceeding from Jehovah's throne, 

And glorious from His hght ? 

Vain though it seem to ask or think 

What sights and sounds divine. 
May rise in slumber's tranquil hour 

On spirits pure as thine ; 
Not wholly so, if, while he sings, 

Within the minstrel's soul, 
The influence of such heavenly themes 

May earth-born cares control. 

Sleep, happy dreamer ! sleep in peace, 
And may thy mental powers 

By visions such as these be nursed 
For future waking hours ; 



A CHILD'S DKEAM. 219 

That so, from death's last dreamless sleep, 

Thy spirit may ascend, 
To know the fulness of all joy, 

In glory without end ! 



A POSTSCEIPT. 



** No child," some critic may perchance exclaim, 
*' Would dream like this ; or dream of heaven at all! " 

And how knowest thou, despite thy critic fame. 

What heavenly dreams on childhood's slumbers fall ? 

One wiser far than thou, who cannot err 

In aught of heaven or heavenly things disclosed. 

Of guileless hearts the best interpreter. 

Hath said — of such that Tcingdom is composed ! 

Unlearn thy worldly wisdom ; he no more 
By self-conceit presumptuously beguiled ; 

But rather study that sweet, lowlier lore. 
Which makes its learner as a little child ! 



JOHN EVELYN. 



A TRUE philosopher ! well taught to scan 

The works of nature, those of art to prize ; 

The latter cordially to patronize, 

But to the first, their Author, and their plan, 

Giving that homage of far ampler span 

Awarded by the good, the great, the wise : 

A hearty lover of old household ties ; 

And, to crown all, a Christian gentleman ! 

Such wert thou, Evelyn, in a busy age 

Of restless change, to dissipation prone ; 

And, at thy death, upon thy coffin-stone. 

Hast left this record, worthy many a page, 

That *' ALL NOT HONEST," ou this mortal stage, 

" Is VAIN ! and nothing wise save piety alone ! "* 



* Evelyn is buried at Wotton, under a tomb of freestone, shaped like a 
coffin ; with an inscription thereon, by his own direction, stating that, " Liv- 
ing in an age of extraordinary events and revolutions, he had learned from 
thence this truth, which he desired might be thus communicated to posterity; 
That ALL is vanity which is not honest! and that there is no 

SOLID wisdom but IN REAL PIETY ! " 



A COLLOQUY WITH MYSELF. 



" As I walked by myself, I talked to myself, 

And myself replied to me ; 
And the questions myself then put to myself, 

With their answers, I give to thee. 
Put them home to thyself, and if unto thyself 

Their responses the same should be, 
O look well to thyself, and beware of thyself, 

Or so much the worse for thee." 



What are riches? Hoarded treasures 
May, indeed, thy coffers fill; 

Yet, like earth's most fleeting pleasures, 
Leave thee poor and heartless stilL 

What is pleasure ? When afforded 
But by gauds that pass away, 

Read its fate in lines recorded 
On the sea-sands yesterday. 



222 A COLLOQUY WITH MYSELF. 

What is fashion ? Ask of folly ; 

She her worth can best express. 
What is moping melancholy ? 

Go and learn of idleness. 

What is truth ? Too stern a preacher 
For the prosperous and the gay ; 

But a safe and wholesome teacher 
In adversity's dark day. 

What is friendship ? If well founded, 
Like some beacon's heavenward glow ; 

If on false pretensions grounded, 
Like the treacherous sands below. 

What is love ? If earthly only. 
Like a meteor of the night ; 

Shining but to leave more lonely 
Hearts that hailed its transient light. 

But when cahn, refined, and tender, 
Purified from passion's stain, 

Like the moon, in gentle splendour. 
Ruling o'er the peaceful main. 



A COLLOQUY WITH MYSELF. 223 

What are hopes ? But gleams of brightness, 

Glancing darkest clouds between ; 
Or foam-crested waves, whose whiteness 

Gladdens ocean's darksome green. 

What are fears ? Grim phantoms, throwing 

Shadows o'er the pilgrim's way, 
Every moment darker growing 

If we yield unto their sway. 

What is mirth ? A flash of lightning, 

Followed but by deeper gloom. 
Patience? — More than sunshine brightening 

Sorrow's path, and labour's doom. 

What is time ? A river flowing 

To eternity's vast sea ; 
Forward, whither all are going, 

On its bosom bearing thee. 

What is life ? A bubble floating 

On that silent, rapid stream ; 
Few, too few, its progress noting, 

Till it bursts and ends the dream. 



224 A COLLOQUY WITH MYSELR 

What is death — asunder rending 
Every tie we love so well ? 

But the gate to life un-ending, 
Joy in heaven ! or woe in hell ] 

Can these truths, by repetition, 
Lose their magnitude or weight ? 

Estimate thy own condition, 
Ere thou pass that fearful gate. 

Hast thou heard them oft repeated ? 

Much may still be left to do : 
Be not hy profession cheated ; 

Live ! as if thou knew'st them true/ 



OEFORD. 



A SONNET, INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND JOHN WODDERSPOON. 



Rememberest thou that pleasant summer day 
Spent by us at old Orford, like a dream ? 
How, as we went, the morning's fitful gleam 
Made the bleak *' walks " and barren heaths look gay ! 
Eememberest thou the hour we wiled away 
In ferrying over Ore's broad, billowy stream ; 
And all our converse, held on many a theme. 
As at our feet the German Ocean lay ? 
But, above all, rememberest thou the hour 
We gave that noble boom ; which well may vie, 
In its rude grandeur of simplicity, 
With any — feudal baron in his power 
Could wish to feast in ; and, from its high tower. 
Beheld, well-pleased, our humble hostelrie ! 

Q 



ORFORD CASTLE. 



Beacon for barks that navigate the stream 

Of Ore, or Aide, or breast old Ocean's spray; 

Land-mark for inland travellers — far away 

O'er heath and sheep-walk — as bright morning's beam, 

Or evening sunset's richer, mellower gleam 

Lights up thy weather-beaten turrets grey ; 

Still dost thou bear thee bravely in decay, 

As if thy by-gone glories were no dream ! 

E'en now with lingering grandeur thou look'st down 

From thy once fortified, embattled hill, 

Striving thine ancient office to fulfil ; 

And though thy keep be now the only crown 

Of Orford's desolate and dwindled town, 

Seem'st to assert thyself its sovereign still. 



THE DEPARTED, 



Much as we prize the active worth 

Of those who, day by day, 
Tread with us on this toilsome earth 

Its devious, thorny way ; 
A charm more hallowed and profound, 

By purer feelings fed, 
Imagination casts around 

The memory of the dead ! 

They form the living links — which bind 

Our spirits to that state 
Of being — pangless, pure, refined, 

For which, in faith, we. wait. 
Q 2 



228 THE DEPARTED. 

By them, through holy hope and love, 

We feel, in hours serene, 
Connected with a world above, 

Immortal, and unseen ! 

*' The dead are like the stars by day. 

Withdrawn from mortal eye ; " 
Yet holding unperceived their way 

In heaven's unclouded sky. 
The mists of earth to us may mar 

The splendour of their light ; 
But they, beyond sun, moon, or star. 

Shine on — in glory bright. 

In this brief world of chance and change. 

Who has not felt and known 
How much may alter, and estrange 

Hearts fondly deemed our own ? 
But those whom we lament awhile, 

" Not lost, but gone before," 
Doubt cannot darken, sin defile, 

Or frailty alter more ! 



THE DEPARTED. 22S 

For death its sacred seal hath set 

On bright and by-gone hours ! 
And they — whose absence we regret, 

Seem more than ever our's ! 
Our's — by the pledge of love, and faith, 

And hope of heaven on high ; 
A trust — triumphant over death 

In immortality ! 



DRAWING OF NORWICH MARKET-PLACE 

BY COTMAN. TAKEN IN 1807. 



" Towered cities please us then. 
And the busy hum of men.** 

Milton. 



Moments there are, in which 
We feel it is not good to be alone ! 

Shrined in our narrow niche, 
As if we would all fellowship disown. 

And least of all — for me, 
A poor recluse and book-worm, is it good 

An ajlien thus to be, 
Standing aloof from my own flesh and blood ! 

In desk-work through the day. 
In minstrel labour to the noon of night, 

I would not wear away 
My sympathy with every social right. 



ON NORWICH MARKET-PLACE. 231 

In many an houi of thought. 
And solitary, musing mood of mind, 

Good is it to be brought 
Thus into intercourse with humankind/ 

To see the populous crowd 
Who throng the busy market's ample space ; 

To hear their murmur loud ; 
And watch the workings of each busy face. 

To let my fancy roam, 
As fancy will, would we but grant her leave, 

TFith each — unto his home! 
There finding what m^y^ lad the heart— or griene! 

On all around to look. 
With a true heart to feel and sympathize; 

As reading in a book. 
Those countless windows — looking down like eyes — 

On the dense mass below ! 
Oh ! who can guess what feelings, past and gone, 

Of varied weal or woe. 
Throbbed in the busiest there — or lookers-on ! 



# 



232 ON NORWICH MARKET-PLACE. 

Needs there a graver thought, 
To give the motley scene more solemn power ? 

How quickly is it brought 
By that old church's lengthened roof and tower ! 

It looks down on the scene, 
Where buyers — sellers — earn their daily bread ; 

Forming a link between 
The busy living — and the silent dead ! 

And, ever and anon, 
High above all that hubbub's mingled swell, 

For some one — dead and gone, 
Is heard its deep, sonorous funeral bell ! 

Thirty-eight years gone by. 
Thus did this motley, moving medley look ! 

And still, unto mine eye, 
It utters more than any printed book. 

Its transcript — to my heart, 
Tells more than prose or verse can ever scan, 

In glimpses that impart 
The natural brotherhood of man with man / 



Introductory Note to the two following Album Verses. 

Once, and once only in my life, I was in the royal presence : 
at some courtly festival, I opine ; for I " sate at meat " with 
unwonted company, and surrounded by regal splendour. 
Chide me not, gentle reader, with presumption ; for it was — 
in a dream ! and I am sure no waking thoughts of mine led 
me there. In this most strange conjunction, I was called on 
for a contribution to the Royal Album ! Awake, under such 
circumstances, I feel certain I could not have written letter 
or line : in my sleep I was bolder, and actually perpetrated 
two stanzas ; which I subjoin, as a literary curiosity, having 
been, veritably, composed in a dream. 



FOR THE QUEEN'S ALBUM. 

COMPOSED IN A DEEAM. 

A BLESSING on thy crowned head ! 

My country's youthful Queen ! 
If such may be or sung or said, 

Amid this courtly scene ! 

And if a poet's loyal love 

Might more than this impart, 

Oh ! may that blessing from above 
Sink deep into thy heart ! 



TO THE DEBEN. 



" scenes that soothed 
Or charmed me young, no longer young, I find 
Still soothing, and of power to charm me still ! " 

COWPER. 



No stately villas, on thy side, 
May be reflected in thy tide ; 
No lawn -like parks, outstretching round. 
The willing loiterer's footsteps bound 
By woods — that cast their leafy shade, 
Or deer that start across each glade ; 
No ruined abbey, grey with years. 
Upon thy marge its pile uprears ; 
Nor crumbling castle, valour's hold, 
Recalls the feudal days of old. 



TO THE DEBEN. 235 

Nor dost thou need that such should be, 
To make thee, Deben, dear to me : 
Thou hast thine own befitting charms, 
Of quiet heaths, and fertile farms, 
"With here and there a copse to fling 
Its welcome shade, where wild birds sing ; 
Thy meads, for flocks and herds to graze ; 
Thy quays and docks, where seamen raise 
Their anchor, and unfurl their sail 
To woo and win the favouring gale. 

And, above all, for me thou hast 

Endearing memories of the past ! 

Thy winding banks, with grass o'er-grown, 

By me these forty years well known, 

Where, eve or morn, 'tis sweet to rove, 

Have oft been trod by those I love ; 

By those who, through life's by-gone hours, 

Have strewed its thorny paths with flowers, 

And by their influence made thy stream 

A grateful poet's favourite theme. 



A VERY YOUNG HOUSE- WIFE. 



To write a book of Household Song, 

Without one verse to thee, 
Whom I have known and loved so long. 

Were all unworthy me. 

' Have I not seen thy needle plied 

With as much ready glee, 
As if it were thy greatest pride 

A sempstress famed to be ? 

Have I not ate pies, puddings, tarts. 
And bread — thy hands had kneaded, 

All excellent — as if those arts 

Were all that thou hadst heeded ? 



TO A VERY YOUNG HOUSE-WIFE. 237 

Have I not seen thy cheerful smile, 

And heard thy voice — as gay, 
As if such household cares, the while. 

To thee were sport and play ? 

Yet can thy pencil copy well 

Landscape, or flower, or face ; 
And thou canst waken music's spell 

With simple, natural grace. 

Thus variously to play thy part, 

Before thy teens are spent. 
Honours far more thy head, and heart, 

Than mere accomplishment ! 

So wear the wreath thou well hast won ; 

And be it understood 
I frame it not in idle fun 

For girlish womanhood. . 

But in it may a lesson lurk, 

Worth teaching now-a-days ; 
That girls may do all household work, 

Nor lose a poet's praise ! 



SONNET, 



TO THE MEMORY OF GAINSBOROUGH; 



SUGGESTED BY THE FRONTISPIECE. 



By scenes like this thine earlier taste was fed 
For Nature's beauty in each lone recess, 
Where, with her richest sylvan loveliness. 
She courts her fond enthusiast's lingering tread ! 
Embowering foliage — arching over-head 
Steep, broken sand-banks, she knows how to dress 
In charms few pencils could like thine express, 
Heightened by gleams of light through darkness shed. 
This spot, in early life a haunt of thine. 
And honoured still, because it bears thy name, 
* Is drawn by one who feels how dear that claim 
To Nature's votaries ; nor would wish to shine, 
Either in crecution, or design. 
By other arts than those which won thee fame ! 



SILENT OR QUAKER GRACES. 



** The Quakers, who go ahout their business of every descrip- 
tion with greater calmness than we, have more title to the use of 
these benedictory prefaces. I have always, therefore, the more 
admired their silent grace." 

Charles Lamb's Paper on Grace before Meat. 



To these Thy gifts, and all to Thee we owe, 

Thy blessing, Lord ! the crowning grace imparts ; 

Deign then to give it, and on us bestow 

The added boon of humble, grateful hearts : 

We ask this in His name, and for His sake, 

"Who, when below, thus blessed the bread He brake ! 



Father, we thank Thee ! from Thy bounteous store 
Thy gifts, like manna, round us ever fall ; 

Teach us to feel Thy goodness, more and more, 
Whoybr us gavest Thy Son ! and to us — all ! 



240 SILENT OR QUAKER GRACES. 

Whether we eat, or drink, or whatsoever 
We do, or speak, or think ; let all be done^ 

Said — thought^ — in holy love, and godly fear 
Of Thee, our Heavenly Father, and Thy Son ! 

That in the use of every good suppUed, 

The Giver by His gifts be glorified ! 



IN PROSPERITY. 



" Rejoice with trembling ! " May we think of this. 
When life's full cup is with thy bounty crowned : 

That so we be not blinded by our bliss, 
Or fall asleep upon '' enchanted ground /^^ 



IN ADVERSITY— OF GOD'S APPOINTING. 

I OPENED not my mouth, for it was Thou, 

Lord ! who didst it ; and Thou canst not err : 

Enable me unto Thy will to bow, 

And be, Thyself, Thy rod's interpreter ! 

THE END. 



Pn 



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